Unfortunately I think any attempt to supplant strip malls with something equally practical would just have the Disneyland effect, you can’t just put a European style pub there. One of the worst things about American life is lack of taste and that’s not something that can be engineered away with policy.
Neuschwanstein (sic), I believe, was built as a tourist trap. Walt Disney took it to another level. Americans typically shop for brand names, but some hole-in-the spots also make it big. Think about T. Monaghan (sic) and Dominoe's Pizza. Now look what he built in Ave Maria, Florida. Good article, thanks!
Rare disagree here. Everyone prefers well laid out, walkable towns and cities cities with nice downtown storefronts over strip malls. But developers and zoning laws prohibit this. I think you are thinking too myopically on this.
As far as the 90s go, what was the mall other than an attempt to recreate this without the crime and bureaucracy of trying to build walkable streets in downtown areas?
It is not developers and zoning laws prohibiting this. It is the nature and demographics of America that prevents this. We're a car-centered culture and much more spread out than in Europe. We don't have walkable cities due to demographics rather than zoning laws. It's harder to do walkable towns in spread out suburbs and rural areas.
It would be nice to have more walkable towns in America, but you'd need a lot more changes than zoning law changes to make that happen.
Down in Florida we have golf cart communities. You can easily zip to wherever you need to be in five minutes. The kids find it a lot more fun than driving and the expense and maintenance is low. It creates a kind of "walkable" vibe especially combined with all the trails for walking.
Zoning actually makes this possible (since they can plan the whole HOA before they break ground).
The big problem with strip malls from my POV is that they deteriorate, both in physical and spiritual form. There was a nice strip near my home that was anchored by a Borders bookstore and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. No, it was not high European architecture, but it was a nice middle-class shopping strip. 30 years later, it's anchored by a Ross and a Dollar Tree with a 5 Below in the middle. The whole 1/2 mile strip has degraded, and it's still on the way down.
It's just the practical nature of these things, as the builders want to lease them out with the least amount of investment, so things move on a downward trajectory until the building just falls apart.
I'm not calling for a jihad against them, as I don't see any viable alternative on the horizon, but they can be a blight. If you see a new one opening up down the street, enjoy it while it lasts, but the clock is ticking.
So this is the argument the urbanist have made but Tucker isn't making their argument as he opposed high density housing and walk ability so I am just confused what he even wants.
I’m way more critical of capitalism than most rightist but even I think this is weird. Of all the things to criticize capitalism for, this is your issue?
To reiterate I don’t see what solution Tucker Carlson or his supporters actually have. They want more aesthetically pleasing buildings, but that would raise building costs enormously and require much stricter zoning which they claim to oppose, since it would increase the cost of housing and doing business just to satisfy their superficial taste. You could have the government build nicer buildings, but that would be done locally and funded by property taxes they want abolished. If it were federal, then how would you fund this without income tax?
Also, if you shut down so many businesses and made construction so much more expensive just so you can LARP as living in Zuffenhausen, you would never win an election again.
One of the things most of us on the right rightfully criticize the left for is their silver bullet magical thinking the idea we an just solve all our problems with no downsides I feel like many in the right are making the same mistake.
Not to sound too much like the intellectuals whom I despise, as a vulgar hedonistic materialistic grunt who just wants blacks sent back to Africa, but I am nonetheless reminded of Baudrillard's idea of simulacra of simulacra, nostalgia for something relatively modern, which itself has supplanted 1950s nostalgia which in turn was also a relatively affluent sheltered existence dependent on technology and vulgar functionality. The intellectual assumes everyone's too dumb to understand what he's talking about. He's too thick to understand that there might be more important things worth focusing on. Debates about the number of angels on the head of a pin while blacks gang rape your daughter. People really are something else.
The dollar store is a great place to buy for $1 what costs $5-$10 at the grocer story. Balloons for a party. A cheap toy for a four year old. Coloring books.
My kids liked their dance classes and such at the strip mall.
If you've got a Vape shop there its the fault of your community, it will exist whether there are strip malls or not.
for a lot of people in rural areas dollar stores are a god send like if you eat healthy you can't do your grocery shopping there but you don't need to drive 30 minutes into town to get one thing.
Great architecture is populist, actually. Always has been. Normies may be complacent, but I highly doubt they would protest a more architecturally and aesthetically sound environment. This is half the reason people travel to Europe. Cities in America were beautiful at the turn of the century. No reason it couldn’t happen again.
It’s all downstream from a low-trust society. Nobody’s going to build nice things if they get vandalized moments after being completed. Strip malls aren’t inherently grotesque - they often only become so in higher-crime areas where security is paramount and extreme utilitarianism has to be deployed. Stop crime/mass third world immigration, you get nicer strip malls.
It’s worth taking a look at why our culture is boom and bust. And it’s worth asking the question: could we achieve a better system?
The American has always adapted and expanded; the strip mall is a praised for being adaptable. I say, let’s adapt our culture to be smarter than endless debt cycles where we get speared and evil, ugly subhumans get rich.
The idea that every building needs to look like Notre Dame is a larp Classical Europe wasn’t a continent full of cathedrals and palaces most buildings were ugly, cramped, and utilitarian. It’s easy to forget this because those structures don’t exist anymore. Only the nice ones survived.
Unfortunately I think any attempt to supplant strip malls with something equally practical would just have the Disneyland effect, you can’t just put a European style pub there. One of the worst things about American life is lack of taste and that’s not something that can be engineered away with policy.
Yes, Americans aren't known for good taste. It is is what it is. We value utility over taste.
Neuschwanstein (sic), I believe, was built as a tourist trap. Walt Disney took it to another level. Americans typically shop for brand names, but some hole-in-the spots also make it big. Think about T. Monaghan (sic) and Dominoe's Pizza. Now look what he built in Ave Maria, Florida. Good article, thanks!
Rare disagree here. Everyone prefers well laid out, walkable towns and cities cities with nice downtown storefronts over strip malls. But developers and zoning laws prohibit this. I think you are thinking too myopically on this.
As far as the 90s go, what was the mall other than an attempt to recreate this without the crime and bureaucracy of trying to build walkable streets in downtown areas?
It is not developers and zoning laws prohibiting this. It is the nature and demographics of America that prevents this. We're a car-centered culture and much more spread out than in Europe. We don't have walkable cities due to demographics rather than zoning laws. It's harder to do walkable towns in spread out suburbs and rural areas.
It would be nice to have more walkable towns in America, but you'd need a lot more changes than zoning law changes to make that happen.
Down in Florida we have golf cart communities. You can easily zip to wherever you need to be in five minutes. The kids find it a lot more fun than driving and the expense and maintenance is low. It creates a kind of "walkable" vibe especially combined with all the trails for walking.
Zoning actually makes this possible (since they can plan the whole HOA before they break ground).
what are the demographics there
The big problem with strip malls from my POV is that they deteriorate, both in physical and spiritual form. There was a nice strip near my home that was anchored by a Borders bookstore and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. No, it was not high European architecture, but it was a nice middle-class shopping strip. 30 years later, it's anchored by a Ross and a Dollar Tree with a 5 Below in the middle. The whole 1/2 mile strip has degraded, and it's still on the way down.
It's just the practical nature of these things, as the builders want to lease them out with the least amount of investment, so things move on a downward trajectory until the building just falls apart.
I'm not calling for a jihad against them, as I don't see any viable alternative on the horizon, but they can be a blight. If you see a new one opening up down the street, enjoy it while it lasts, but the clock is ticking.
Hail our food courts hail Arbys
So this is the argument the urbanist have made but Tucker isn't making their argument as he opposed high density housing and walk ability so I am just confused what he even wants.
I’m way more critical of capitalism than most rightist but even I think this is weird. Of all the things to criticize capitalism for, this is your issue?
To reiterate I don’t see what solution Tucker Carlson or his supporters actually have. They want more aesthetically pleasing buildings, but that would raise building costs enormously and require much stricter zoning which they claim to oppose, since it would increase the cost of housing and doing business just to satisfy their superficial taste. You could have the government build nicer buildings, but that would be done locally and funded by property taxes they want abolished. If it were federal, then how would you fund this without income tax?
Also, if you shut down so many businesses and made construction so much more expensive just so you can LARP as living in Zuffenhausen, you would never win an election again.
One of the things most of us on the right rightfully criticize the left for is their silver bullet magical thinking the idea we an just solve all our problems with no downsides I feel like many in the right are making the same mistake.
A lot of community building happens in strip mall karate studios.
Not to sound too much like the intellectuals whom I despise, as a vulgar hedonistic materialistic grunt who just wants blacks sent back to Africa, but I am nonetheless reminded of Baudrillard's idea of simulacra of simulacra, nostalgia for something relatively modern, which itself has supplanted 1950s nostalgia which in turn was also a relatively affluent sheltered existence dependent on technology and vulgar functionality. The intellectual assumes everyone's too dumb to understand what he's talking about. He's too thick to understand that there might be more important things worth focusing on. Debates about the number of angels on the head of a pin while blacks gang rape your daughter. People really are something else.
The dollar store is a great place to buy for $1 what costs $5-$10 at the grocer story. Balloons for a party. A cheap toy for a four year old. Coloring books.
My kids liked their dance classes and such at the strip mall.
If you've got a Vape shop there its the fault of your community, it will exist whether there are strip malls or not.
for a lot of people in rural areas dollar stores are a god send like if you eat healthy you can't do your grocery shopping there but you don't need to drive 30 minutes into town to get one thing.
Great architecture is populist, actually. Always has been. Normies may be complacent, but I highly doubt they would protest a more architecturally and aesthetically sound environment. This is half the reason people travel to Europe. Cities in America were beautiful at the turn of the century. No reason it couldn’t happen again.
I literally LOL'd at "Great architecture is populist."
It’s all downstream from a low-trust society. Nobody’s going to build nice things if they get vandalized moments after being completed. Strip malls aren’t inherently grotesque - they often only become so in higher-crime areas where security is paramount and extreme utilitarianism has to be deployed. Stop crime/mass third world immigration, you get nicer strip malls.
Our laws against public nudity boil down to aesthetic preferences. Nothing wrong with enforcing certain kinds of aesthetics in society.
This view is somewhat simplistic.
It’s worth taking a look at why our culture is boom and bust. And it’s worth asking the question: could we achieve a better system?
The American has always adapted and expanded; the strip mall is a praised for being adaptable. I say, let’s adapt our culture to be smarter than endless debt cycles where we get speared and evil, ugly subhumans get rich.
This was a good piece. Thanks
The best ones have dive bars. Even better ones have tiddy bars.
Anti-strip mall is anti-white.
Ah yes, the wonderfully white vape shops and taquerias.
not at all strip malls filled with ethnic places...
The idea that every building needs to look like Notre Dame is a larp Classical Europe wasn’t a continent full of cathedrals and palaces most buildings were ugly, cramped, and utilitarian. It’s easy to forget this because those structures don’t exist anymore. Only the nice ones survived.
>get arm pump
>walk over to Chipotle for a slop bowl
>walk over to McDs to scarf down some cheeseburgers