Interesting article, I don't really know if this is what Sedaris is getting at, but recently I came across the term "non-place": Non-place or nonplace is a neo

Interesting article, I don't really know if this is what Sedaris is getting at, but recently I came across the term "non-place": Non-place or nonplace is a neologism coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé to refer to anthropological spaces of transience where the human beings remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/archaeologiesofplace/7994.html https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/course... From what I've read online the inclusion of shopping malls is a bit contentious because for many friends they served as a central meeting & hangout place. And as a result of that kind of transcend their primary purpose. I can certainly see why people hold a strong nostalgic (possibly even melancholic?) attachment to malls in particular.