I remember Spaceport and Aladin's castle. .25$ arcades, and $1 gave 5 tokens. You could play for hours just on $5. And they allowed kids, competitions, and all sorts of things. I'd go hang out while my parents were shopping, and just chill.

There also used to be, in quite a lot of the malls, a jungle gym or playground area. They'd be full of kids, and you could just chill and hang out, except for free. But there were usually age limits so you didn't hurt little ones. And around this was always a common area. Lots of tables, food places, coffee shop or 2.

Clubs and nonprofits would meet here - it was a huge commons area. I remember fondly playing chess on chess club nights. Played some pretty awesome pros there.

And the companies there.. You had Sears, Estee Lauder, Nordstrom, and all those big name box stores. And then you'd have all sorts of smaller stores scattered, with rarely ever any room left over (1-2 empty plots due to eventual turnover). But there was something for everyone. Maybe it was a candy store, or a toy store, or specialty thing.

That's all changed.

Arcades are gone. Yeah, there's one 35 miles away from me, in the next city over. The jungle gyms and playgrounds were deemed dangerous and unsupervised, so they were decommissioned. You know, for "safety". And those tables? Yeah, those only encourage bums and lazy people to congregate, so they're right out.

And those clubs? Yeah, they need to pay rent if they want to have a group, so they too were summarily kicked out (Well.. it is private property :/ ). And now with less people, those food vendors started closing. That coffee shop had not enough customers and moved/closed. The rest of the food vendors (whom you've never heard of), now started skimping hard and jacking the prices.

And that's not to add in the compounding issues with online stores. A single online store can house millions of products. No real retailer can do that. So, you see the big box stores being squeezed by both the malls running people out, higher prices than online, and better selection than online. So, they end up closing and going bankrupt. It's not any one fault here, but a compound effect that set these things in motion.

For me, its that single shoe place. I make a point to park at the closest place to get in, try on shoes, and get out. There's nothing else here for me. And clothing is really the last bastion of something you really should be in person for - cause sending back stuff sucks.