The Teenagers Of Tomorrow Will Hang Out In Abandoned Department Stores

One could almost feel sorry for the teenagers of tomorrow. They won’t have malls to hang out in, to go on crappy dates in, to shoplift from, to get caught shoplifting from. Sure, they’ll have the fabulous Internet and their Snapchats, Oculus Rifts, and 3D printers, but they’ll never have the opportunity to get dropped off at Hot Topic, because malls are dying. Today there’s more grim news about the death of the American Mall, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that real estate research firm Green Street Advisors has released a study saying that department stores need to close hundreds of locations if they would like to survive. Green Street estimates that “the closures could include roughly 800 department stores, or about a fifth of all anchor space in U.S. malls.”

In other words: Not good news for department stores, and not good news for malls either, since they’ll loose a fifth of their storefronts. And not good news for teens who will now have big, empty, abandoned buildings to hang out in, rather than stores. Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds like an awesome place for teens to hang out. Read more at Esquire.