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ghettopalmetto;241878]It's quite a valid assertion--shopping malls-as-tourism rely on people from "elsewhere" being "lured" to a place and spending their dollars there instead of at "home". In other words, it's a form of economic development that relies entirely on geographic shifting of cash. It doesn't produce anything new, it doesn't create anything new--just like a casino, it's just a way for people to show up, drop cash, and leave. This is a TRANSFER of wealth, not wealth creation. And with a shopping mall, you're just transferring wealth within the micro-economy of Southeastern Michigan without increasing the GDP.
That is a fact of retail wherever you live. If you buy your smoked salmon online from Nome Alaska, you will undoubtedly create a bunch of problems.
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So, what's the problem with that? Well, you can't base an economy on people buying the same crap from each other, because that's ultimately a zero-sum game. At some point, you need a means to generate and grow wealth that makes your cash shell-game possible in the first place. This game is also known as "The Bigger Sucker", as without being able to find a bigger sucker to drop his hard-earned dollars in your town vis-a-vis elsewhere, the whole Ponzi scheme falls apart.
This is complicating it a little bit isnt it?
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Unfortunately, the Detroit region has focused "economic growth" on activities that do not generate and grow wealth:
Shopping Malls
Stadiums
Casinos
Well they do generate wealth, the problem is in the balance; How many and where and why and when and what for? Talk to people in construction who periodically revamp these commercial spaces and ask them about the business they generate.
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For every Twelve Oaks, there's a Wonderland. For every Somerset, there's a Northland. How's that working out in the long-run?
The proof is in the proverbial pudding. Diluting the pudding might increase the volume, but it doesn't make more pudding.
The idea that they must all be the same is mistaken. I have an aversion to the sameness aspect of these things to, But downtown shopping malls have an advantage in that they can be integrated to bigger buildings and favor many types of retail from low to high end. A case in point in my city is that major shopping malls didnt want the Dollarama chain in there for a while until they realized that is what drew people in as much as the Sears or Bay stores. Dollarama is a local company that is more profitable than Walmart selling stuff at a buck and a quarter.
What I mean is Detroit's CBD could handle a couple of malls with variety and it would probably spur other retail on the street. There are 20+ malls in Montreal's downtown in major bldgs and they have not hindered street retail. Any new development includes a shopping plaza and food court. Cadillac-Fairview want to build a 4 tower plaza around the Windsor train station and Bell Center in downtown, and it will have shopping.