Overview
• Suburban Growth and Malling of America
• Rise of “Big Box” Retailers
• Impact of Suburbs on Urban Politics
Suburban Growth
• Greatest beneficiaries of federal highway programs and real estate were developers of shopping malls
Suburban Growth
• Between mid 1950s and late 1970s: 22,000 suburban shopping centers built
• By late 1990s: 43,000
Suburban Growth
• That includes thousands of strip malls– one main anchor with
smaller stores, facing parking
Suburban Growth
• Regional malls– 30 acres
– usually enclosed
– at least one anchor store with 100,000 feet leasable space
Suburban Growth
• Superregional malls– total 1,400,000 square
feet of leasable space
– e.g., Mall of American (Bloomington, Minnesota)
4 anchor stores, 520 stores, 51 restaurants, 8 nightclubs, 14 movie screens, and a theme park
Suburban Growth
• Mall of America:– 4.2 million square feet
– 2.5 million square feet of leasable space
– 600,000 to 900,000 visitors weekly
– 42.5 million visitors per year*
*tops Disney World, Graceland, and Grand Canyon as most popular tourist destination in U.S.
Rise of “Big Box” Retailers
• Development of “edge nodes”– Growth areas of commercial development
usually outside of downtown urban areas near interstate highway exchanges
– Usually lack the public space, transit, pedestrian amenities, and overall density of a traditional downtown.
Rise of “Big Box” Retailers
• With development of edge nodes emphasis is on automobile rather than pedestrian
• Rapid depreciation of land, rapid turnover of tenants
• Build cheap buildings with big signs
Rise of “Big Box” Retailers
• Rise of Walmart• Challenge to Malls
and keys to “success”– have everything
– have it cheaper
Rise of “Big Box’ Retailers
• Expansion of “Category Killer” stores:– specialized “Big Box” stores
• Toys ‘R Us (toys),
• Staples (office supplies)
• Home Depot (home supplies)
– aim to dominate a specific market niche