I'm in the midwest and I agree. You need a certain critical mass of population density and enough common destinations for mass transit to work. From what I can tell, this is a lot higher than the population needed to sustain a mall.

Our town does have a bus system but most of them drive around empty or nearly so most of the time. We also have a decent indoor mall and several outdoor "big box store" shopping centers which all seem to be surviving if not thriving.