In other parts of the country, they are actually building new malls. Go down to Palo Alto or San Jose, or even Stonestown. Those malls are thriving. https://montco.today/2023/01/triple-five-group-florida-king-...
Santa Clara is No. 3 and San Francisco No. 12 [1]. Medians can obscure gut-wrenching poverty.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_count...
Median household income is a poor proxy for a mall’s revenue driver: aggregate proximate disposable income. One can maintain lofty median incomes while peripherialising disposable income through higher median costs of living.
(Side note: I spent a hot minute in childhood in McClean. The food in Leesburg might have triggered my inner gourmande. Forgot that until just now—thank you.)
It was pointing out that the chosen isn’t the signal it’s being positioned as.
> Loudoun County has the 3rd highest average household disposable income and a low poverty rate, so again should be a great location for a mall
Source? (Purely for curiosity.) Averages don’t matter. Aggregates do. If I am a county of one, even with tremendous disposable income, a good location for a mall I do not make.
Malls are absolutely in structural decline. But pointing to median and average metrics is misleading, though not in an uncommon way.