SHOPOPOLIS

I never met Ada Louise Huxtable, though for a brief period we were both writing for the New York Times. She even quoted me in one of her...

As Black Friday Goes... Well, this looks like the annual Black Friday post.  The blog's look has changed, and not for the last time pr...

Santa Claus' sleigh these days takes the form of this huge ship, commissioned by Wal-Mart and built in Denmark specifically and only to ...

Cathedrals of Consumption The apparent enemies may change, but this is the real religion that is so persistently and vociferously defended...

The much beleaguered Bayshore Mall in Eureka was humming on Saturday, so what does that say?--see post below.

A Sunny Saturday at Bayshore Mall Autumn is the sunniest time of year here on the California North Coast, and this Saturday was very sunny-...

This is a model of Xanadu, the mega-mall under construction in New Jersey during what seems to be doom time for the shopping mall. Is it? Se...

Sustainable Doom Once again, the shopping mall is doomed. The death knell has been sounded periodically since the 1980s, even before The Mal...

Christmas at Ye Olde Shopping Mall: New traditions and even nostalgia now locate Christmas memories where, for better or worse, families h...

Mall Nostalgia: Recalling Christmas at Ye Olde Shopping Mall In what’s shaping up to be a bleak Christmas, thoughts may naturally turn to b...

Photos I took of Greengate Mall in 1999, when it was nearly abandoned: (top) outside the old Hornes (later Lazarus) department store; insid...

Greengate was built on land that had been part of a farm and summer home owned by the appropriately named John S. Sell family. (The place ev...

Greengate Mall, center court Christmas display. Click photo to enlarge. BK photo.

Local news coverage about Greengate’s demise inevitably mentioned its Christmas events and elaborate decorations. (I’d written about the ove...

“I remember it was where I first told Santa what I wanted for Christmas,” said one. “I always loved going to Greengate Mall with my parent...

“I remember lights in the food court that would change colors (yellow, blue, green, etc) during Christmas as Charlie Brown music would pla...

Many recalled riding the train through the snow-covered Christmas village. “I remember the animated deer with the jerky movements that buil...

The element of nostalgia is particularly evident in the frequency of comments such as: “Wow, nothing compares to it today.” A department st...

When I was first writing about Greengate in the late 70s and early 80s, I often heard similar sentiments expressed about downtown Greensburg...

Then they simply lasted, and thanks partly to years of shared experiences, the local shopping mall often became a real place. And so they b...

Christmas is still being experienced at hundreds of malls, and thousands of photos taken with Santa. But even before the latest economic blo...

Big Box Reuse : an inspiring, important book about transforming abandoned retail spaces for crucial public uses (or at least public fun.)

Big Box Reuse by Julia Christensen The MIT Press This is a wonderful, inspiring book--all the more so because it is meticulously reported an...

When Black Friday Comes When Black Friday comes, I stand down near the door and catch the great men when they dive from the 14th floor. When...

Abandoned Greengate Mall in western PA, a few years before it was torn down. BK photo.

The Wasting of America In sites all over the Internet, the shopping mall has become an item of nostalgia. I understand how malls can inspire...

As products get crappier, malls get gaudier, especially for upscale buyers, and especially overseas. This is one section of several theme ar...

Junk This summer required our household to consider some major purchases, and it was an eye-opener. It began modestly, but with portent: the...

Chosen! When I published a new paperback edition/revision of my book, THE MALLING OF AMERICA, I became part of a new publishing phenomenon: ...

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions By Dan Ariely Harpercollins; 304 pages; $25.95. Call me crazy, but I’ve a...