Well, first of all, retail square footage is not a great way to measure retail, (imo, and all of this is US centric) I may be in the minority here, but the US h

Well, first of all, retail square footage is not a great way to measure retail, (imo, and all of this is US centric) I may be in the minority here, but the US has such a ridiculous amount of retail space per capita, head and shoulders above any other country, I find it to just be insane. And as such, I don't think it's good measure, especially given that we have so much unused retail space now, along with my suburban sprawl note, which this is all about. Further, do not take what has been happening in the past 2 to 4 years as the norm, either in retail, housing, etc. It is very much not the norm. There are more old/overbuilt/poorly-located (again, not poorly located, but rather a victim of socio-economic and local changes) than there are new malls being built. And I have already made note of this fact. I already made note that new malls tend to be entertainment centers. There are more dying malls out there than there are new malls being built. And once again, a lot of those malls focus on entertainment (more than just food and a movie theater, and again, "shopping as entertainment") as well as high end goods. (you are not going to have 10 malls in a mid-size city each with a Louis Vuitton store, you're going to have 1, if they're a large enough city.) "but most markets are actually experiencing modest-to-insane amounts of growth." Nope. Not at all. Cities are experiencing modest-to-insane amounts of growth. Many small cities, towns, rural communities are static or contracting at a modest-to-insane rate. And guess what is happening to the malls located in those communities? (again, I noted this in the og comment; people tend to pay attention to NYC, San Fran, other large cities. Most Americans do not live in those places, those places are not the norm, they are the exception. This is something that many commenters of HN who live in those large cities seem to not grasp.) The dead malls are very much a part of the landscape, and will remain so (until they're torn down and redeveloped, which is what is supposed to happen.)