Burying America’s Malls: Cyclical Capital, Commodity, and Creative Destruction

Richard Kirk Dr. Ipsita Chatterjee (Mentor and Co-editor)

“Permanently Closed,” my GPS warned scarce parking) is now deserted. This is a after I thumbed in the address of the Valley “dead mall” – and carcasses of them riddle View Mall in , Texas. This mall had America. Here, I will explore a number of once boomed, having peaked in popularity aspects related to the phenomenon of back around 1990. Like shopping malls declining malls. I attempt to uncover the across America, Valley View Mall and mall’s relationship to capital in the Event Center was a hub for commercial and American urban setting with particular social exchange – a magnet for bona fide reference to the Sun Belt, the regional shopaholics, boredom-stricken teenagers, context of my personally investigated malls. and everyone in between. Now, the city of I also attempt to discern why the concrete Dallas calls it an eyesore, and is suing to remains of malls are left to litter the urban have the defunct mall demolished landscape, and, perhaps most importantly, to (Wilonsky, 2018). Nothing is left but the discover the culprit(s) behind the malling concrete, minus some boards and padlocks industry’s decline. Finally, I endeavor to that secure the massive building from connect these realizations in order to would-be squatters and other trespassers. apprehend a more holistic image of the The sprawling, asphalt-laden parking lot ’s decline in the American (once surely the site of squabbles over urban context.

Valley View Mall and Event Center Parking Lot. 04/13/2019. Photograph by author.

According to geographer Jon Goss in his inevitable emergence of a hyper-saturated article “The ‘Magic of the Mall’: An retail environment. This is but a microcosm Analysis of Form, Function, and Meaning in of the shortsightedness that we know to the Contemporary Retail Built characterize capital. Certainly profit Environment,” the shopping mall is accumulation in this over-retailed arena is carefully contrived. It is a built environment unsustainable, but capital does not operate that utilizes spectacle to exhibit commodity with such foresight. It hastily builds in order and entice awed consumers inside. Goss to fuel its insatiable hunger for extracted writes about the way in which the mall’s surplus value. entrance “beckons” the shopper as they For years, damning statistics traverse the bleak parking lot, decorated in a reflecting an industry decline have been way that is “suggestive of an oasis or reported – some of which indicate a sanctuary inside” (Goss, 1993). Upon relationship between the decline of malls entering, one sees that “[t]he utopia is kept and climbing e-commerce. The rise of scrupulously clean and orderly, without any is, after all, the most readily material contamination nor hint of the namable suspect in the mall killer case. gradual obsolescence that characterizes Driving to the mall takes time and material objects” (Goss, 1993). Capital has navigating it is cumbersome, so why bother erected a landscape in its image – à la David when commodity is the tap of a smart phone Harvey – a built environment expressly away? Wolf Richter writes in his Business designed to fuel accumulation for Insider piece “Nothing Can Stop the Shift to accumulation’s sake – masking the fleeting Online Shopping” that the stores getting hit nature of material value. Throughout the the hardest by the online shopping trend “are latter part of the 20th and continuing into the typically the stores that populate the malls. 21st century until the mid-2000s, such Department store sales, which peaked in spectacular malls sprang up in most every 2001, have gotten crushed by e-commerce. major city, oftentimes with multiple Despite 16 years of inflation and population cohabiting the same cityscape. It was this growth since then, department-store sales spatial ubiquity that, in part, contributed to have plunged 35%” (2017). Richter even the demise of the American cultural staple. includes a nice graph to illustrate the point. Josh Sanburn writes in “Why the Further expanding on this decline, a Forbes Death of Malls is About More Than article by Tim Worstall entitled “The Shopping” published in Time, “There is an Shopping Malls Really Are Being Killed by estimated 26 sq. ft. of retail for every person Online Shopping” notes that “about 80 in the U.S., compared with about 2.5 sq. ft. percent of the country’s 1,200 malls are per capita in Europe” (Sanburn, 2017). What considered healthy, reporting vacancy rates this indicates is that there is simply too of 10 percent or less. But that compares with much space dedicated to retail in America to 94 percent in 2006, according to CoStar allow for so many malls. That such a Group, a leading provider of data for the real problem would arise seems like common estate industry” – signaling what retail sense – probably because it is. Capital analyst D.J. Busch calls the beginning of “a frivolously erected mall after mall for the death spiral” (qtd. in Worstall, 2015). So, it sake of profit accumulation, erecting them in has been no secret that malls are dying at an close geographic proximity to other malls alarming rate. and retail outlets despite the impending and

Source: Richter, 2019.

In Denton, I made a trip to the people who call to return things they’ve Golden Triangle Mall. Upon walking in bought from the [Dillard’s] online store, and through the main entrance, one is greeted by we have to process those. That’s really what the gloomily lit gated entrance to what had did it, people going online and buying previously been a outlet; it was one of instead of coming in. I can hardly get out of 72 nationwide to close due to plummeting the parking lot here without seeing sales (D’innocenzio, 2018). Traveling a bit trucks driving by. So, they had to close off farther down the corridor, I found the old the old Men’s [Department] and move it all Dillard’s “Men’s Department” entrance over here. padlocked. What had been the men’s During our exchange, she also clothing section is no longer an extant mentioned that the Dillard’s at Music City portion of the store. Curious about the Mall in Lewisville, Texas, is being reason for the apparent downsizing, I spoke converted into a thrift store. “That’s another to a longtime employee in the Customer thing that’s doing it, I’m telling you. All Service department: these thrift stores,” she offered up, as though The phones used to ring all the time, this were a reason for failing malls. Of but now it’s really slow. We get a lot of course, I held my tongue.

Former Dillard’s Men’s Department entrance now padlocked, Golden Triangle Mall. Denton, Texas. 04/13/2019. Sign reads: “Dillard’s men’s department now located inside store. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you, Dillard’s management.” Photograph by author.

Former Sears entrance, Golden Triangle Mall. Denton, Texas. 04/13/2019. Photograph by author.

It was clear that no serious relationship between declining malls and the consideration had been given to the rising popularity of thrift shops, else a

comment of that sort would not have been the realm of manufacturing and industry. In aired. That people cannot afford to shop at places like the Sun Belt, the primary circuit high-end malls and instead browse the is characterized by agriculture and mineral selection at their local Goodwill is surely the resource extraction as opposed to extensive product of a greater systemic problem. factory and mill production (Tretter, 2016). Clearly, thrift shops have not “done in” the Then upon crisis, capital moves into the American mall. What is important to secondary circuit, the realm of urban understand, however, is that neither have the housing and development. It transforms isolated phenomena of online shopping and urban landscapes into predacious over-malling. This is not to say that online environments expressly purposed to aid in shopping and over-malling are not to blame; its gain, seizing control of urban necessity indeed they partly are. But the virtual (housing) and commodity (retail centers). marketplace and needless plethora of Finally, after yet another crisis of over- spectacular malls is merely part of a much accumulation, it moves into the tertiary larger story, one that implicates Harvey’s circuit – the most ethereal of markets. These notion of cyclical capital. namely concern research and development, To ascertain the role of capital in the software, e-commerce, and technologies decline of the American mall, I needed to (Harvey, 1990). The shopping mall, situate the malling phenomenon into some therefore, we can comfortably situate within necessary context. Harvey describes the way the secondary circuit, as it surely falls within in which capital moves throughout a the scope of “urban development”. landscape, fleeing from place to place in In the secondary circuit, capital has response to crises of over-accumulation that erected spectacle after spectacle to exhibit invariably punctuate capital’s predatory commodity in the urban space – from theme occupation of space. Capital is afflicted by a parks to stadiums to shopping malls – all habitual problem, he says. It over-invests in purposed to fuel profit accumulation. It is a created landscape to such a degree that it virtually inarguable that mall over- can generate no further profit. It is this investment is occurring, because its zenith of gain that he calls the “crisis of consequences are demonstrably wreaking over-accumulation” (Harvey, 1990). havoc; stores inside of shopping malls are Consequently, capital must abandon its host closing, and entire malls are dying. Given environment and relocate, seeking out a new what we know about Harvey’s model, one market in which to invest and extract might therefore expect that this capital in additional surplus value. Yet the “flow” of crisis would be fleeing uniformly into the capital into a new environment proves only realm of the tertiary circuit – but this is not to be a temporary treatment for a chronic so. While understanding Harvey’s circuits of condition. Crises of over-accumulation capital is useful in situating the mall within punctuate capital’s tenure wherever it its capital context, the reality of capital gluttonously resides. inside of the circuits proves to be much Harvey modeled his circuits of more dynamic. By exposing the nature of capital with specific reference to Rust Belt capital at the level of the secondary circuit, I America and industrialized Western Europe, can bring the cause of the mall’s decline into but the model contains sufficient room and sharper focus. Remember Valley View Mall nuance to be applicable elsewhere, too. He and Event Center, the dead mall that the city posits that capital begins by over-investing of Dallas wants torn down for being an in what he calls the primary circuit, that is, eyesore? This mall serves an illustrative case

study to explore capital’s movement within moving dynamically within the secondary the secondary circuit. circuit of urban development – not just The once-booming mall is now but a flowing into the tertiary. It experiences shell of its past self: a huge, desolate micro-crises, wherein it over-invests in concrete structure with a sprawling ghost particular market niches and upon reaching town for a parking lot. The nature of its the point of over-accumulation must relocate construction is such that demolition is into yet another within the secondary circuit rendered difficult and very expensive. It is – urban housing, office buildings, an immobile, implastic built environment. restaurants, and even more retail outlets, this Capital knew this, but had a backup plan if time independent of a spectacular mall’s the mall failed: it would simply move on. superstructure. And when the Valley View Mall and Event Capital is diversifying its portfolio in Center failed, capital did exactly that, the secondary circuit, looking to minimize leaving behind in its wake an enormous its risk but maximize its net surplus concrete shell devoid of all use value. (To extraction. In terms of Valley View, Beck complete Harvey’s sentiment, capital creates wants to create what he calls an “urban a landscape in its image only to destroy it at village,” a more diverse landscape that a later date.) The landscape left behind has caters to the uber rich. This is not just an been effectively defaced, destroyed, stripped idiosyncrasy of Valley View, either, but of its use value, because to tear down the rather an unnerving trend. In Plano, Texas, a mall is just too expensive a task. That is why “one billion dollar plan has finally been the carcasses of so many dead malls litter approved for Centurion American the American landscape; to do anything Development Group to redevelop the [Collin about their ghostly shells is simply beyond Creek Mall] into a mixed-use project with the capacity of local municipalities and housing, entertainment and offices” (Ziots, bankrupt owners. Harvey, drawing from 2019). Quotations of this sort regarding economist Joseph Schumpeter, calls it other malls, both dead and dying, are scarily “creative destruction” – when capital abundant. While America’s malls are dying, shortsightedly erects a landscape that is capital is shifting gears. It is seeking a fresh functionally designed to aid in profit face, diversifying its urban image, and accumulation, only to turn around and dynamically pumping investments into destroy it when it no longer serves capital’s variable facets of the urban landscape. Most interests. But where is capital going, if not saliently, this means rampant gentrification the tertiary circuit? related to the inevitable rises in ground rent Should the law come to side with the surrounding the re-developed space. It is city of Dallas in its lawsuit to have the easy to envision the consequences of such Valley View Mall and Event Center gentrification on the surrounding poor and demolished, we have already gotten a working class, who would be forced to leave glimpse of what is to replace it. A piece in due to exponentially rising rent. cites Scott Beck, of diversification of capital within the renowned development firm Jeff Beck and landscape of the secondary circuit has grim Sons, on what may come next if the mall is implications for already vulnerable urban torn down: “1.5 million square feet of retail populations, implications that simply cannot storefronts, restaurants, residential units, be treated with adequate enough care herein. office towers and even a high-rise hotel with Understanding what is killing condo towers” (Wilonsky, 2018). Capital is America’s malls proves, then, to be a much

more complex concern than merely positing each of us holds a shovel. We are the tight- that online sales, over-malling, or thrift lipped gravediggers burying America’s shops are the simple culprits. In truth, the malls, and it is our collective complicity that shopping mall is the victim of the very thing perpetuates the destructive cycle of capital that it was erected to generate – capital. Its in our cities. The result: a sea of dead malls predatory nature and dynamic movement litters the landscape, awaiting the bulldozers within the secondary circuit is the killer of and wrecking balls that will make way for the American mall. But you and I aren’t off capital’s next ventures atop the ashes. the hook. We are capital’s accomplices, and

Valley View Mall and Event Center, circa 1978. Source: Grant, 2019

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