The early malls were predicated on investment by the department stores. But as suburbs expanded, they began to draw all this energy away from downtown. The Gruin idea of the indoor shopping mall allowede to keep some of that glamour from downtown and also feed off other shopping but move out to the suburbs. It was seen as an important new element, or important new tool, for creating urbanism in the suburbs.
No teenager in America in the 1980s could avoid the gravitational pull of the mall, not even author Alexandra Lange. In her new book, Meet Me by the Fountain, Lange writes about how malls were conceptually born out of a lack of space for people to convene in American suburbs. Despite the fact indoor shopping malls are no longer in their heyday, malls have not gone away completely. Lange writes about the history of mall culture, and how the mall became a ubiquitous part of American life.
Meet Us by the Fountain