The vanishing shopping mall
theweek.com
theweek.com
Er, outside? Down a street? God forbid, in the country?
And, as others have pointed out, much of the USA is really cold in the winter. Here's an article about Britain's "record cold" from earlier this winter. (As low as -11C in parts of Scotland!)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article5459012...
Here's a map of Minnesota's mean winter temperatures. Note that the mean temperature in the southern-middle part of the state, where Minneapolis and the Mall of America are, is around 14 degrees F, or about -10 C.
http://climate.umn.edu/img/normals/mean_temp_norm_adj/mean_t...
Walking around a climate-controlled mall is great exercise.
I'm from this area (although I haven't been to Metcalf South in ages). Our winters are mostly below freezing and our summers are mostly above 95, so for older people, walking outside is rather less appealing than walking in what amounts to a climate controlled indoor track.
Sadly, this isn't even the worst case. The (not so) Great Mall of the (not so) Great Plains in Olathe (about 20 mins away), actually opens early in the morning so people can use it to walk. The stores don't open until 9 or 10, but the mall itself will open at 7 for walkers. This mall is a giant oval that is probably 3/4 of a mile in circumference, with carpeted floors.
Yeah, it's stupid, and it's not that cold/hot outside, but honestly anything is better than the average suburban exercise routine, which is to do nothing.
If super-sized shopping malls are disappearing, it's for a reason and probably because they're too big. The local mall here is currently doing a $60 million expansion, but then this is basically a middle-class only town and the malls target this. It's also getting a supermarket in the expansion, and the next mall over already has one.
Walmart recently opened a supercenter, not far from the older mall, but it definitely doesn't appear to have affected the amount of people going there. Walmart certainly gets a large amount of visitors, but it doesn't necessarily have all what people here want. They have a great selection of electronics, however their stocking practice sucks monkey butt. They've lost numerous sales from me because despite the website claiming they have something in stock I end up going to one of the malls to get it. I don't like walking into the store one week and seeing something I'd like to get, and the next week it's gone.
All in all, personally I'll shop at a mall over Walmart, just because I like being treated like a customer and not a broken ATM with legs.
The one I went to when I was recently living in Texas sold flat screen TVs, DVD players, books, kids toys, and clothes, in addition to food. Many Wal-marts are adding grocery stores.
From the consumer's viewpoint, they can still get everything in one place (just like a mall), but the economics for big box retailers are better than a bunch of small stores that happen to gather in one building.
Of course, malls in Singapore (and probably elsewhere outside the US) benefit from being placed within walking distance or directly on top of/underneath mass transit hubs. When you have to drive to a concrete island, it won't be quite the same.
But what grocery store closes before 9pm?
Most malls in the U.S. close at 9pm or 10pm. If a mall store closes its storefront before then, it looks bad (similar to a block with abandoned buildings, a couple not open storefronts break the RetailLand experience).