I'm just here to vent, mostly about something aesthetic. I hate how commercial real estate is used in the US. I hate big box chain stores surrounded by parking lots the size of a small town. Malls are bad enough, but here's like a worse version of a Mall with even more parking and without even the courtesy of interior decor.
For those of y'all outside the US, imagine a giant parking lot and then like 10 stores all glued together and 1 giant one, usually something like a Best Buy or Kohls or whatever.
They're always the same thing too. I've been to 30 different states and they're everywhere. They're typically a very bland beige color. Maybe another color if you're lucky. They're ugly as hell. They're cluttered together randomly to ensure maximum parking space. They always look terrible and no regard is put into presentation at all. They're just the core features of American excess boiled down.
Drive car here, buy treats, leave.
They're such a waste of space and the only reason they exist is because malls were too slow at generating profit because too much walking is involved. I'm so mad at driving past a zillion of these no matter where in the country I go. I could be in Florida, California, South Carolina, Montana, doesn't matter. Same 10 things over and over. Kohls, Ross, Subway sammiches, gamestop, nail salon, Lens crafters, dentists (??), fucking emergency rooms sometimes (???). Yes let's put the emergency room right next to the Dick's Sporting Goods please
Can we please have architecture that either looks nice or performs better functions than just huge parking lots with consumer nonsense attached
Does anyone like these things
I forget the exact federal law/loophole but it was passed in the 70s and let commercial real estate developers make a on malls and strip malls without bearing the risk or whatever. They would bulldoze a farm beside a highway, get paid to set up a mall, sell it to a dupe for a hefty profit. Something like that. This is why malls popped up and became so popular in the 80s. By the time people realized they're not very profitable, it was too late. People were stuck with these huge buildings and lots of commercial space that nobody wanted to rent. Malls were sold as these safe crime-free places to shop and hang out then when they started dying, it was blamed on crime. When really it was just everyone started moving online and nobody wanted to pay huge rents to cover the mall owner's poor business instincts.