Nostalgia, Pride, and Why Towns Built Malls

What do you do with 720,000 square feet of dead mall? Towns across America are struggling to find the answer as their malls shut down, leaving budget craters and infrastructure nightmares in their wake. Abby is joined by Carlee Alm-LaBar, Strong Towns' chief of staff and a former city staffer, to explore whether the answer is a grand redevelopment plan — or thinking radically smaller.

• “A Town's Single Largest Taxpayer Is Also Its Biggest Headache” by Jim Zarroli, The New York Times (June 2025).
• Click here to listen to The Bottom-Up Revolution episode about the 24 Hour Citizen Project.
• ‍Abby Newsham (X/Twitter)

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