Oh no it’s one of my hyperfixations.
So fun fact I am currently in school to learn how to build affordable housing. They don’t teach you how to murder strip malls so I must learn this on my own. Someday the two will fuse and I will be an angel of death for shopping centers. This is my calling.
There have been attempts to turn malls into affordable housing. Sadly retrofitting commercial properties into habitable living spaces is usually more expensive than just making a new building. All that big empty space with uniform climate control is cool and all but it’s not habitable living quarters. you know what it’s GREAT for????
HYPER-LOCAL AGRICULTURE BAYBEEEEEEE
Indoor farming got a bad rep recently because it couldn’t become profitable fast enough to satisfy the capitalists funding it. But these places have loads of height for more space-efficient vertical farms, and while plants won’t need the blasted AC of most shopping malls, they probably do appreciate a steady climate (something that’s getting harder to find outdoors).
“But wait,” you say, “the food court has all those fully outfitted kitchens. It would be a waste not to incorporate that into daily living.”
hello????????? Literal farm-to-table restaurants that grow their vegetables right across the hallway are you KIDDING ME??????????????? (better keep that shit cheap tho no gentrification on my watch)
“But wait wait wait,” you say again, “how can it be *local* farming when there’s no housing nearby? Also this isn’t about food we need fucking housing????”
I hear you, man, I hear you. But you know what is right around a shopping mall? Acres upon acres of the most depressing use of land in history: fucking dog shit crusty ass empty fucking parking lots.
The amount of space these bad boys take up is STAGGERING, and it’s often enough to fit an entire neighborhood. Just check out what this one architect in Maine did to replan the Portland mall (they won an award for it):
*everything on that map that’s in color is currently flat cement*
One mid-sized mall in Maine can fit an entire downtown area WITH GREEN SPACE in its parking lot, and *still have room for parking.*
So yeah, the housing in malls idea is cool thinking. Think bigger. WAY bigger.
Think of all the space strip malls and their parking lots take up. Imagine all that space becoming housing and small businesses and third spaces and NATURE.
These stores are dying fast. The real estate is cheap as fuck. It is extremely doable within the next decade. We just have to fucking do it.
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