Love Affair with the Mall Is on the Rocks

The New York Times declares our love affair with the shopping mall is rocky.  But not for the reasons you think.

As reporter David Segal puts it, "We are reliably informed that whatever part of the economic crisis can’t be pinned on Wall Street — or on mortgage-related financial insanity — can be pinned on consumers who overspent. But personal consumption amounts to some 70 percent of the American economy. So if we don’t spend, we don’t recover. Fiscal health isn’t possible until money is again sloshing into cash registers, including those at this mall and every other retailer.

"In other words, shopping was part of the problem and now it’s part of the cure. And once we’re cured, economists report, we really need to learn how to save, which suggests that we will need to quit shopping again.

So the mall we married has become the toxic spouse we can’t quit, though we really must quit, but just not any time soon. The mall, for its part, is wounded by our ambivalence and feels financially adrift."

What great writing.  Long live the daily newspaper and its talented reporters like Segal. 

But long live the shopping mall?  Hmm... I could do without it.  But I take Segal's point.  The messages are as mixed as they come.

I heard a commentator on MSNB say this morning, "It's like we all got the 'Don't shop' memo on the same day in November, and since then we have stayed home while the economy tanked."

  

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