The problem is, people more and more can't manage to pay these rents, so they're either cutting back on any absolutely not necessary spending or going homeless outright. For now, there are enough desperate people that still have some money to pay rent... but retail, no matter which industry, is feeling the impact of people having no spending money hard.

Without the AI bubble artificially propping up the GDP, it is most likely the US economy is in a recession [1].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/14/ai-infrastructure-boom-masks...