Uh I grew up in NJ suburbs in the 80’s and 90’s - that was already the case, and there was a hit movie 3 decades ago about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma

Uh I grew up in NJ suburbs in the 80’s and 90’s - that was already the case, and there was a hit movie 3 decades ago about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallrats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallrats (But malls are much less popular now, probably mainly due to the rise of Internet retail)