From BuzzFeed: Completely Surreal Photos Of America’s Abandoned Malls
Dead malls are popping up all over the states, particularly in the Midwest, where economic decline has sped up the “going out of business” process. This map, put together by a Dead Malls Enthusiasts Facebook group, shows that well.
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What you are about to see is what happens when malls are abandoned. It’s apocalyptic and really, really creepy.
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Actually, I’m not sure which is creepier: the dead malls, or the Dead Malls Enthusiasts.
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UPDATE: Another view of the suburban mall – and the suburbs – here: “Skyscrapers in the Subdivision” in nextcity. Amanda Kolson Hurley describes a different kind of mall in a multi-ethnic suburb of Toronto:
Not the Mall You Remember
It’s a Friday in December, and the parking lot of a mall in Markham, in York Region, is jammed. This mall looks different from any other I’ve been to, like a cross between an old European railway station and a huge barn. Inside, it’s a crowded Hong Kong-style market. Tiny, glass-walled stores sell Chinese herbs, eyeglasses and Hello Kitty merchandise. You can eat Cantonese noodle soup and Beard Papa’s cream puffs in the food court. We’re in Pacific Mall, known locally as P-Mall, the largest Asian-themed indoor mall in North America.
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The US govt has been keeping the zombie plague secret for months. Entire communities across America have been wiped out. People are fleeing the quarantine zones. They can’t keep it covered up for long. Photos are leaking out showing the deserted towns and malls.
That is what excessive lending with no recourse will do. Neither the banks have risks, as they sell mortgages off, nor borrowers as there is usually no personal recourse.
A hangover from the 2008/2009 financial crisis.
Today lending is somewhat more prudent in the US, but there is a dark side to the low interest rate policies adopted by most nations now, and this overbuilding is one of them.