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This was inevitable, and not even because of online shopping. America has been over-retailed for a long time. Retail per square foot around the world looks lik

This was inevitable, and not even because of online shopping. America has been over-retailed for a long time. Retail per square foot around the world looks like this, in decreasing order US - 23.5 sq ft of retail per person Canada - 16.8 sq ft Australia - 11.2 sq ft UK - 4.6 Japan - 4.4 etc. US stores got here by taking on more debt than they could handle, expanding aggressively, and then collapsing under the burden. When the big box stores and department stores went bankrupt, they often took whatever mall they were anchoring down with them. The question has always been not if this would happen, but how quickly. Source: https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp https://i.insider.com/5bb37815ac0a6314735194e8?width=1300&fo...

KiranRao0 5y ago
While the amount of amount of retail space is higher than Canada/Australia, so is the spending (per Capita) United States: 14,614 Canada: 10,953 Australia: 9,239 UK: 6,495 I still believe anchor stores can take down an entire mall, but I don't believe it's inevitable based solely on the sq ft per Capita numbers. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-capita-of-shopping-centers-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-... Edit: spacing
- pas 5y ago
  It's expected that US spending is the highest. Just as with healthcare, the US average individualized consumption is the highest, because the on average US residents produce the most. The US is a very rich country. Unfortunately there are so many almost mandatory luxuries built in to the American dream that it quickly eats up all that income.
  - allendoerfer 5y ago
    > The US is a very rich country. > [...] on average US residents produce the most Of course that is true. > It's expected that US spending is the highest. And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend.
    - pas 5y ago
      > Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend. Mostly because there are some mandatory luxuries, like having a car, student debt, health insurance, ridiculously expensive housing. Or just "the new iphone". > Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/#rcatoc-diminishing-returns-to-spending-and-worse-lifestyle-factors-explain-americas-mediocre-health-outcomes https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o... > And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. I mean, the economic surplus is spent, on what is of course critical, but the vast riches produced year by year is there. As the link argues, lifestyle choices determine where that surplus is allocated to.
    - neither_color 5y ago
      The discussion is about retail so I'd exclude healthcare and education. Retail-wise, with relatively low sales tax(no VAT, typically 5-10% sales tax) and highly competitive options we do have cheap abundance in the US. Isn't one of the main criticisms that we waste the most energy per capita? Fuel is cheap, electricity is cheap, electronics are cheap, food is cheap and portions are massive. When I travel the only thing I find comparatively cheaper in other countries is human services. So in places like Southeast Asia or Latin America you can afford a maid and a driver on an upper middle local salary but would still pay more for an imported cell phone than an American.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >mandatory luxuries That is such a brilliant phrase!
echelon 5y ago
Contrarian perspective. The model worked until it apparently didn't. If Amazon and online shopping hadn't happened, we'd still be going to the malls. A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Outside of disposably fast fashion like Shein, it's usually more convenient to try clothes on shotgun fashion. In person. Fragrance, jewelry, luxury goods. All better done in person. Home Depot is peerless and will never be replaced with an online equivalent. Touching and trying things on is an experience that just can't be matched online (sans metaverse, if it actually delivers). Amazon is aggressively expanding physical retail presence. They're focusing on convenience, which is probably the biggest reason people avoid shopping in person. People love shopping. And if the shopping experience is modern and fun, and interspersed with drinking and dining, they love doing it with friends. It's a social activity too. If malls morph into "live-work-play" hubs like this old sears factory [1] or this entirely new construction in that mold [2], they'll absolutely flourish. [1] https://www.poncecitymarket.com https://www.poncecitymarket.com [2] https://townbrookhaven.net https://townbrookhaven.net
- im3w1l 5y ago
  > A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Online shopping decreased the demand for retail but not all the way to zero. So it makes sense that some should fold and others should stay.
  - echelon 5y ago
    I'm too tired to find sources right now, but the popular thinking is that each of these retailers sank due to bad service. They had leadership changes that suddenly wanted to cut salespeople (while their competitors didn't), or source cheaper parts (Sears Craftsman and appliances). This was at a time when the businesses had seemingly healthy margins and glowing prospects.
HWR_14 5y ago
The UK and especially Japan have significantly higher population densities. You would expect them to have less square footage of retail space. Meanwhile, a reason for the mall explosion was because real estate developments, especially commercial malls were heavily subsidized by taxpayers in the 1980s (might have the decade off). Those still exist at a smaller scale, but not enough to justify their levels, even back before 2008.
- JCharante 5y ago
  Is it not possible that such a large retail industry is only possible in high population density area?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    My point is that extra space to move (wide aisles that can handle multiple carts across or space around an in store display or other empty space) is much cheaper in the US, so you can just afford it. But the cost of devoting 100's of sq ft of space to mannequins on pedestals might not fly in a Japan (Walmart equivalent)
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Do suburban Americans not drive to Buy'n'Large to shop? It's the high density Americans in New York City who go shop in tiny supermarkets.
- chii 5y ago
  square footage per capita is a misleading metric, coz it assumes that each square foot is equivalent in each country - and that a higher area equates to a higher spending and cost. I think profit per-capita is a better metric. It's harder obtain that metric of course...
  - achow 5y ago
    Hmm.. per sqft seems to be reasonable. Whichever country (given income equality and ignoring cultural disposition to consumption patterns) a human would need approx' same amount of goods, whether grocery, clothing or other such, and those items would occupy exact same space in all countries.
lmm 5y ago
How do those numbers compare with land value in those countries? My impression is that a lot of things are built bigger in the US because there's plenty of space so land is cheap.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Depending on where you are, land is not actually that cheap where these suburban stores exist. The suburbs of New York and the suburbs of Cleveland look very different in terms of land price. One contributing factor might be local tax policies. American politicians are all about bringing jobs to their local area, and so have been willing to cut very generous tax breaks in return for, say, opening a store that provides jobs. However, American metropolitan areas have very fragmented local areas, so suburb A and suburb B and suburb Z across town are all doing this. This basically encouraged a lot of these commercial developments to throw up cheap buildings that wouldn't last long; once it was showing its age they'd just take the next suburb's tax break and start over. You can only repeat this trick so much, though.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  That's part of it. The other part is property taxes and zoning rules either encouraging or outright mandating low density development.
fy20 5y ago
Are you sure this is worldwide data? This dataset shows Sweden and Norway having higher densities than the UK, but they aren't anywhere on your list: https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shopping-center https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shoppin...
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Admittedly, it's been a while since I last had to bring this up, so I found https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-in-early-innings-cowen-says-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i..., which upon further inspection lacks those countries. That being said, the US is by far the country with the most retail per capita.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Looks like they correlate with population density! Australia sounds sparse but people are mostly clumped in a few cities.
bigodbiel 5y ago
I always thought the abundance of malls was by design of affluent suburban dwellings (unlike Europe where suburbs are usually mid-lower class dwellings), plus sprinkle of the old American entrepreneurship. That commerce is going virtual and suburbs failing was always my reasoning.
FredPret 5y ago
This is probably more due to population density and GDP per capita. The US has the most space and the most money per person, so one would expect lots of retail per person there.

KiranRao0 5y ago

While the amount of amount of retail space is higher than Canada/Australia, so is the spending (per Capita) United States: 14,614 Canada: 10,953 Australia: 9,239 UK: 6,495 I still believe anchor stores can take down an entire mall, but I don't believe it's inevitable based solely on the sq ft per Capita numbers. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-capita-of-shopping-centers-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/741827/retail-sales-per-... Edit: spacing

pas 5y ago
It's expected that US spending is the highest. Just as with healthcare, the US average individualized consumption is the highest, because the on average US residents produce the most. The US is a very rich country. Unfortunately there are so many almost mandatory luxuries built in to the American dream that it quickly eats up all that income.
- allendoerfer 5y ago
  > The US is a very rich country. > [...] on average US residents produce the most Of course that is true. > It's expected that US spending is the highest. And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend.
  - pas 5y ago
    > Americans also tend to spend even if they actually do not have anything to spend. Mostly because there are some mandatory luxuries, like having a car, student debt, health insurance, ridiculously expensive housing. Or just "the new iphone". > Americans often do not get more for spending more (see healthcare and others) so after spending they would actually often be poorer. https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/#rcatoc-diminishing-returns-to-spending-and-worse-lifestyle-factors-explain-americas-mediocre-health-outcomes https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o... > And of course there is a connection here. But you are not necessarily rich, when you spend more. By definition you are rich when you have more. I mean, the economic surplus is spent, on what is of course critical, but the vast riches produced year by year is there. As the link argues, lifestyle choices determine where that surplus is allocated to.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    The discussion is about retail so I'd exclude healthcare and education. Retail-wise, with relatively low sales tax(no VAT, typically 5-10% sales tax) and highly competitive options we do have cheap abundance in the US. Isn't one of the main criticisms that we waste the most energy per capita? Fuel is cheap, electricity is cheap, electronics are cheap, food is cheap and portions are massive. When I travel the only thing I find comparatively cheaper in other countries is human services. So in places like Southeast Asia or Latin America you can afford a maid and a driver on an upper middle local salary but would still pay more for an imported cell phone than an American.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >mandatory luxuries That is such a brilliant phrase!

echelon 5y ago

Contrarian perspective. The model worked until it apparently didn't. If Amazon and online shopping hadn't happened, we'd still be going to the malls. A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Outside of disposably fast fashion like Shein, it's usually more convenient to try clothes on shotgun fashion. In person. Fragrance, jewelry, luxury goods. All better done in person. Home Depot is peerless and will never be replaced with an online equivalent. Touching and trying things on is an experience that just can't be matched online (sans metaverse, if it actually delivers). Amazon is aggressively expanding physical retail presence. They're focusing on convenience, which is probably the biggest reason people avoid shopping in person. People love shopping. And if the shopping experience is modern and fun, and interspersed with drinking and dining, they love doing it with friends. It's a social activity too. If malls morph into "live-work-play" hubs like this old sears factory [1] or this entirely new construction in that mold [2], they'll absolutely flourish. [1] https://www.poncecitymarket.com https://www.poncecitymarket.com [2] https://townbrookhaven.net https://townbrookhaven.net

im3w1l 5y ago
> A large number of retailers fell not to online shopping, but instead to lowering quality of service and goods. Sears, Circuit City, JC Penny, and Kmart each have analogous stores and former competitors that remain and are doing well. Online shopping decreased the demand for retail but not all the way to zero. So it makes sense that some should fold and others should stay.
- echelon 5y ago
  I'm too tired to find sources right now, but the popular thinking is that each of these retailers sank due to bad service. They had leadership changes that suddenly wanted to cut salespeople (while their competitors didn't), or source cheaper parts (Sears Craftsman and appliances). This was at a time when the businesses had seemingly healthy margins and glowing prospects.

HWR_14 5y ago

The UK and especially Japan have significantly higher population densities. You would expect them to have less square footage of retail space. Meanwhile, a reason for the mall explosion was because real estate developments, especially commercial malls were heavily subsidized by taxpayers in the 1980s (might have the decade off). Those still exist at a smaller scale, but not enough to justify their levels, even back before 2008.

JCharante 5y ago
Is it not possible that such a large retail industry is only possible in high population density area?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  My point is that extra space to move (wide aisles that can handle multiple carts across or space around an in store display or other empty space) is much cheaper in the US, so you can just afford it. But the cost of devoting 100's of sq ft of space to mannequins on pedestals might not fly in a Japan (Walmart equivalent)
- ant6n 5y ago
  Do suburban Americans not drive to Buy'n'Large to shop? It's the high density Americans in New York City who go shop in tiny supermarkets.
chii 5y ago
square footage per capita is a misleading metric, coz it assumes that each square foot is equivalent in each country - and that a higher area equates to a higher spending and cost. I think profit per-capita is a better metric. It's harder obtain that metric of course...
- achow 5y ago
  Hmm.. per sqft seems to be reasonable. Whichever country (given income equality and ignoring cultural disposition to consumption patterns) a human would need approx' same amount of goods, whether grocery, clothing or other such, and those items would occupy exact same space in all countries.

lmm 5y ago

How do those numbers compare with land value in those countries? My impression is that a lot of things are built bigger in the US because there's plenty of space so land is cheap.

bobthepanda 5y ago
Depending on where you are, land is not actually that cheap where these suburban stores exist. The suburbs of New York and the suburbs of Cleveland look very different in terms of land price. One contributing factor might be local tax policies. American politicians are all about bringing jobs to their local area, and so have been willing to cut very generous tax breaks in return for, say, opening a store that provides jobs. However, American metropolitan areas have very fragmented local areas, so suburb A and suburb B and suburb Z across town are all doing this. This basically encouraged a lot of these commercial developments to throw up cheap buildings that wouldn't last long; once it was showing its age they'd just take the next suburb's tax break and start over. You can only repeat this trick so much, though.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
That's part of it. The other part is property taxes and zoning rules either encouraging or outright mandating low density development.

fy20 5y ago

Are you sure this is worldwide data? This dataset shows Sweden and Norway having higher densities than the UK, but they aren't anywhere on your list: https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shopping-center https://eeg.tuwien.ac.at/commonenergy/gla-per-capita-shoppin...

bobthepanda 5y ago
Admittedly, it's been a while since I last had to bring this up, so I found https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-in-early-innings-cowen-says-2018-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-apocalypse-is-still-i..., which upon further inspection lacks those countries. That being said, the US is by far the country with the most retail per capita.

quickthrower2 5y ago

Looks like they correlate with population density! Australia sounds sparse but people are mostly clumped in a few cities.

bigodbiel 5y ago

I always thought the abundance of malls was by design of affluent suburban dwellings (unlike Europe where suburbs are usually mid-lower class dwellings), plus sprinkle of the old American entrepreneurship. That commerce is going virtual and suburbs failing was always my reasoning.

FredPret 5y ago

This is probably more due to population density and GDP per capita. The US has the most space and the most money per person, so one would expect lots of retail per person there.