Dan Bell- the Dead Malls video guy- Ted Talk

For any of you who are fans of Ted Talks or Dead Malls, this is worth your time.  On one hand, we have Dan, a filmmaker who lost his desire to film.  On the other hand, we have a weird and huge trend in the U.S., the "dead malls."  For those who don't know, dead malls are malls that have either closed and are in some state of deterioration, or malls that are struggling to stay alive with few stores left in them. 

As I mentioned in the last post, my walk through a dead mall a month ago got me really looking into the issue of America's retail shop collapse.  This is happening all over the country and the world.  Dan gives his impressions above.  I have just written a 24 page, self-published, funny zine about ways to use all that empty space in dead malls and abandoned buildings.  You can get a copy here:

43 Ideas To Reuse Dead Malls zine

3,500 + retail stores closed or closing

Normally I don't embed videos from You Tube channels like this, but this guy sums up what's happening in a few minutes.  There are now over 3,500 retail stores closed or closing in the U.S. soon.  When I started looking into this issue a month ago, the number was just over 3,000.  This is a big deal.  Is this the end pf the world that religious nut jobs have been predicting for the last 20 years or so?  No.  Is this the end of the world?  But it IS a real big deal.

MALLPOCALYPSE.  Malls across the U.S. have been dying a slow death for years.  The Oak Hollow Mall in Highpoint, North Carolina, about 15 miles from where I live, just closed down a month ago.  Walking through that mall a week before it closed is what got me looking into this issue.  No one has exact numbers, but generally speaking, 400 of the 1,200 enclosed malls in the U.S. have either closed, or are expected to close in the next few years.  And that's if we DON'T go into a recession.

What does this mean to you?  1) If you work in retail, look up your employer and see how they look long term.  It might be time for a career change.  Thousands are already losing their jobs.  Personally, I think we're teetering on the edge of a recession, and it could be a serious one.  Get your act together financially as best you can.  We still don't know what this massive amount of store closings will lead to.

My latest zine: 43 Ways to Reuse Dead Malls and Abandoned Buildings

Here's a clip of some guys exploring the abandoned Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio.  This is just one of many of the "dead malls" in the U.S. right now.  When I looked this mall up, after seeing Rick McCrank explore it in his Viceland show Abandoned, I got a surprise.  I was born about five miles 13from where this mall was built.  We moved away when I was about 2 1/2, but my grandma lived ten miles away.  So I know this was one of the malls I spent time in as a kid.

Then, just over a month ago, I happened to walk through Oak Hollow Mall in Highpoint, North Carolina, a week before it totally closed down.  As I looked into why entire malls were closing down, I found that 400 of the 1200 enclosed malls in the U.S. are either closed, or expected to close in the next five years.  In addition, well over 3,000 major chain store locations have closed in the last couple of years or are scheduled to in 2017.  We are witnessing Mallpocalypse.

So I made a zine about different ways we could take these dead malls, empty factory buildings, and other vacant buildings, and put them to use.  Here are three of my ideas from the zine:

#2  Adult Big Wheel Drifting Course.  You've seen those things on You Tube.  Build some downhill ramps, or maybe use the multi-level parking garage to let people drift those adult sized big wheels.

#9  Vintage shops that sell real old people.  Seriously, there are way too many elderly people in the world.  We all know of one or two we'd like to sell.  Here's a place to find them a good home.  

# 13 Boy band shooting gallery.  Real boy bands, live ammunition.  They perform, you shoot, society wins.

Those are just three of the 43 ideas in my zine for putting the thousands of empty buildings we have back to use.  To see three more ideas and order a signed and numbered zine, check out my Go Fund Me page for this project:

43 Ideas on how to reuse dead malls and abandoned buildings