Spring 2021 Issue - 68

Mall
Redevelopment
Can Achieve
Sustainable,
Equitable
Diversity in
American
Suburbs
SEAN SLATER

Many malls were created with
White suburban shoppers in
mind. Redeveloping these
properties with attention to
practical needs of diverse
communities can help
ameliorate the legacy of
racial segregation.

U R B A N LA N D

LandWrites_SP21.indd 68

Shopping malls have a special place
in the popular culture of the United States.
For younger baby boomers, gen Xers,
and older millennials, the mall served as
a town square of their childhood. And
even as malls falter, the retail sector has
reflected massive prosperity for over a century, now with over 8.5 billion square feet
(790 million sq m) of space dedicated to
sales and storage, circulation, and services
for moving manufactured goods.
But while this growth mirrors the social
and political rise of cities, to the benefit of
affluent White families, it has largely left a
void for racial minorities and less-affluent
White people. In too many cases, mall growth
resulted in fewer resources, less opportunity,
and a landscape in need of healing, both
ecologically and spiritually. The story of retail
real estate is inseparable from the human
struggle for equality and inclusion.
As these mall assets become defunct,
they open the door to improved designs-
designs that may finally incorporate equity
and even address issues such as climate
change and the stagnating middle class.

How Malls Mirrored Inequities
The examples of systemic racism influencing land use are rampant. Houston, for
example, was organized by a radiating
geography of racially segregated, numerical wards. Instituted in 1837 to organize
council districts, these land use patterns
persisted well into the 21st century, sweeping up retail planning and development
along the way.
" Following the Civil War, emancipated
Black families lived in Fifth Ward, Third
Ward, and the southwestern section of
Fourth Ward, " Janet Wagner wrote in January 2012 for Houston History magazine.
Most of the city's malls-along with city

parks and new suburban development-
followed the outlines of the mainly White
First and Sixth wards well into the suburban reaches.
Nationwide, redlining codified inequities. Starting with the Federal Housing
Administration in 1937, the practice mirrored retail development in carving racially
drawn ghettos, often reinforcing biases
and accelerating the decline of basic services and unmet daily needs for communities of color.
Indeed, unhealthy development
severely harmed these communities. An
overlay of the University of Virginia Demographics Research Group's racial dot map
on almost any U.S. city shows a strong
correlation between communities of color
and proximity to sewage treatment plants,
industrial uses, and other hazardous land.
An overlay of this racial map with shopping
malls reveals an almost exact tracing of
White flight and the developer-friendly residue of redlining.
Compounding the depreciation and
stigmatization of inner cities, this institutionalized racism and classism incentivized
suburban housing, commercial development, and infrastructure farther and farther
from city centers. Accelerating all this
destructive segregation was federal highway construction: it plowed through underprivileged neighborhoods, separating them
from the success of privileged-largely
White-residents.

De-Malling through Demography
and Design
Malls have a particular story to tell. Today,
their design limitations have turned them
into white elephants on the urban landscape.
Department stores' reciprocal easement
agreements, shared common-area mainte-

SPRING 2021

3/31/21 1:10 PM

Spring 2021 Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spring 2021 Issue