Imagine apartments built into what used to be department stores, (Oh, you’re JC Penny 203? I’m at Sears 106). Get those old arcades up and running. Set up meal stations at the food court. Once people actually live there, stores will start to move back in.

If I’m unable to finish my life in my own home, that doesn’t sound like a terrible option.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    How will shifting away from cars result in more people going to the mall? How are you supposed to get there?

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      3 months ago

      By subway. By bus. By bike. Walking. The world by and large doesn’t revolve around cars. How do you think Europeans get there?

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Public transport…and their countries are small as fuck. The amount of people who think the USA is the same size as European countries is hilarious. Most states are the size of a few eu countries.

        • viking@infosec.pub
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, so? Are you going to a mall in the next state or what? Public transport connects suburbs and cities. You’re not supposed to take the subway from Chicago to your favorite mall in Seattle, just like no European takes a bus from Amsterdam to go shopping in Brussels.

          • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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            3 months ago

            Yes, that’s what Europeans don’t understand about America. When we go to, say, Wal Mart, there’s only one. We have to go to Bentonville, AR. Not so bad for us here in the Midwest, but the residents of Alaska have it particularly tough. And since you go to Wal Mart to pick up milk, we can’t go by public transport. It has to be by car, or better yet, drive the Canyonero. (No train schedule can predict when the milk runs out!)

            The country is so big, and we have so much empty land, there’s just simply no room to build more stores near where people live. What kind of madness would that be?!

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              (No train schedule can predict when the milk runs out!)

              How about YOU predicting when milk runs out? I’m not asking you to do five-year plan, but it’s easy to know when milk will run our.

              The country is so big, and we have so much empty land

              Russia is bigger and has more empty land. Despite Putin’s idiocy with invading other country.

              • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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                3 months ago

                Ha, I thought that the blatant contradiction about having too much space and therefore not enough space would make the joke obvious, but I guess not.

                Also, a Canyonero isn’t a real vehicle. It was a joke from The Simpsons.

                • mbfalzar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  3 months ago

                  The joke was obvious, and you even doubled down by suggesting people intentionally go to Bentonville. I appreciated it

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Nope but the nearest mall to me is 2 hours drive. No one is building rails out into the smaller counties. The USA is massive. I’ve lived in Europe, its a lot smaller, and people still have cars. Not saying this couldn’t work for cities but people forget how spread out we are here in the usa.

            • uis@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Nope but the nearest mall to me is 2 hours drive.

              Have you considered that this is because most of space in USA is allocated only for cars? Or that if this space wasn’t allocated to cars, then you wouldn’t need to traverse such disyance in first place?

              but people forget how spread out we are here in the usa.

              The solution: trains

              • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Look I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be putting in trains as much as possible but it’s not a solution to cars. Hell in Europe people still drive a good bit.

                • justgohomealready@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  The solution is not living in the middle of anywhere, two hours away from civilization. If you lived next to the mall, you could go there by foot.

        • AwesomeLowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          The rest of the entire world is a teeny bit larger than the US, but they still manage to do public transport just fine, for the most part.

        • uis@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          The amount of people who think the USA is the same size as European countries is hilarious.

          Well, Russia is a European country. Also Russia is largest country in the world.

    • Laborer3652@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      Public transportation. In Germany at least, many of the train stations are located underneath common points of interest, such as malls, airports, downtown, etc. As a result, they are nearly always flushed with people.