Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

Visit any rural diner between 8:00 and 9:00 (or urban diner between 9:00 and 11:00) when it's otherwise quiet. I'll bet you will find a cluster or two of elderly people swapping lies.

Indoor malls used to be similar gathering places for people who wanted to walk without being in the weather.

Basically, look anywhere the 20- or 30-somethings aren't.

View on HN

Yeah, or any McDonalds in the Midwest around that time. I always feel out of place if I happen to stop at one during that time on vacation.

I find it amusing when Americans tell stories about malls being ghost towns. In Australia they are almost reaching the limits of how many people can fit inside the buildings and the whole road and public transport systems are based around the locations of them.

I have no idea what the difference between here and America is. Amazon is not super big here like it seems to be in America.

where I live desirable malls are always packed and there is a steep cutoff to ghost town. in fact the ghost towns have existed for so long most are demolished or in the process of.

I just did some googling and arrived at some (very rough) numbers (total population / approximate number of malls).

In the U.S., there are ~2,827 people per mall.

In Australia, there are ~15,337 people per mall.

There are probably just way too many malls in the U.S. given a population that's moving to online shopping.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com