Not really news. Malls brought the demise of Downtowns, now their suffering w/ the internet...amplified w/ poor economy.

I think the main thing is, it explains why Robert is so angry, he has no place to hang out w/ the other 7th graders.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Americas-M...l?x=0&.v=1

Only the bad malls (the ones you go to) are having problems, many are doing quite well (like the ones where I go to sip lattes).

Absolutely the worst mall in the US is in Charlotte NC. Eastland Mall home to well about 500,000 square feet of unoccupied space all 5 anchors (JC Penneys, Sears, Belk, Dillard and Macy's) are gone, the movie theater closed years ago with two failed attempts to reopen. Not sure how this dump didn't make the list, it is still open but the owners walked away last year. the operating hours have been cut to 10 - 5 because of the high crime rate. I guess dumps like these are even in the numbers. The Sad thing, this was THE mall in Charlotte until about 1990, it was the largest 1.1million sq ft. had an ice skating rink movie theater and 5 anchor stores. The city shifted the government housing from downtown to this area and the rest is history.

When my sister went to the University of Texas, her apartment was pretty close to Highland Mall. Of course that was 26 years ago.

Austin has expanded out to the North and West making Highland basically an "inner city" mall.