{"id":900,"date":"2018-09-01T08:28:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T15:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/?p=900"},"modified":"2019-07-17T08:33:42","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:33:42","slug":"i-dont-give-a-bleep-about-akron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/i-dont-give-a-bleep-about-akron\/","title":{"rendered":"“I Don’t Give a (Bleep) About Akron!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Charles Marohn<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year I moderated a panel of suburban mall developers as part of an economic forum at New York University. It was a spirited conversation among some heavy hitters, including a few well-capitalized investors whose opinions directly shape communities around the country. Needless to say, this was a high-testosterone affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple weeks prior to the event, I\u2019d had an opportunity to visit Akron, Ohio, and, as part of that visit, experience the rotting corpse that was the Rolling Acres Mall. As I listened to these men talk about their efforts to deploy Wall Street capital to build the next generation of malls\u2014places that offered a theme park-style experience as an entr\u00e9e to a shopping dessert\u2014I wondered where a place like Akron, and a property like Rolling Acres, would fit into these investors\u2019 visions for the communities they were \u201cdeveloping.\u201d I asked the question. The reply I received from one of them\u2014and this is a quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t give a F*CK about Akron!<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Truth. As our economy continues to grow more centralized and efficient (read: tightly wound and deeply fragile), there is comparatively little profit to be made by providing high-end \u201cexperience retail\u201d to what some Wall Streeters think of as a population of comparatively poor, blue collar, overly-indebted rubes living in flyover country. The real profits\u2014as the panelists explained to me\u2014are in the \u201ctop 50\u201d markets. That\u2019s where the money is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you aren\u2019t in one of those fifty places, your failing malls will either be \u201crescued\u201d by a mix of consignment stores, tattoo parlors and social services, or they will slowly rot away, leaving a persistent and painful reminder of the community\u2019s failure and the fact that the big players didn\u2019t think your place was worth saving. Oh, and this gigantic monument to disgrace will sit along one of your most highly visible corridors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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