We are now officially a low-trust society
Exhibit A – the Walgreens of the future:
Walgreens, which has closed about 750 stores in the last few years, just debuted a theft-resistant format in a redesigned store in downtown Chicago. As CWBChicago reports, it has a lot more staff than a regular store, where customers (and thieves) help themselves to merchandise off the shelves.
In what was once a typical Walgreens, there are now just two short aisles of so-called “essentials,” where “customers may shop for themselves.” If you want anything else — a bottle of booze, a deodorant brand deemed “non-essential” — you’ll need to order it at a kiosk and pick it up at the counter.
So many things are ordered online these days and mailed that perhaps this newer type of in-store shopping won’t seem so strange to most people. It certainly seems both strange and depressing to me, although I’ve already noticed pharmacies in California where nearly everything is locked down. That’s not the case where I live, but I wonder how long it will be before I start seeing the signs.
Although this is only tangentially related, the mall near me is a sad and nearly-deserted place. I was at the Macy’s there the other day, and I saw only one or two other customers in the entire store. I happen to like to browse as well as to try things on, but that may be a pleasure that will be phased out soon. And yet, a week or two earlier I had some business at a different mall about an hour away, in an area that’s similar demographically and only a little more populous, and the mall there was absolutely bustling.
That really surprised me. The stores there are not very different from the stores in the mall nearer to me, although there are a few more of them, and a couple of slightly nicer ones. Otherwise it’s the same. So why the enormous disparity in consumer traffic? I’m not sure, but I think that once a mall starts spiraling down there’s a negative feedback look in which more and more stores start leaving and then it becomes a kind of spooky place where no one wants to shop.
In NYC Target, Walgreens, and CVS pretty much have most things under lock and key. Recall that grating term during lockdowns “the new normal” – well it is back.
Re Malls: I grew up in the height of the era of the large indoor shopping mall, the 1980s. I remember as a kid the malls around me were always bustling even on weekday mornings. Now most of them are either long gone or near dead. I haven’t set foot in an indoor shopping mall in almost a decade, but I remember my last trip was pretty depressing. It was to a large mall that I used to visit back in the day. It used to have literally dozens and dozens of shops, but in modern times it was reduced to a few moribund anchor stores and a couple strange discount stores. It was otherwise a vast desolation of boarded up spaces and long darkened corridors. Pretty grim.
Historically upscale S.F. mall going downhill due to clientele.
Not the only one.
Personally, I buy a lot of stuff online, for the convenience. Were I to go to the mall, or big box store, attitude would be “While I am here, may as well see what else I need.”, resulting in additional purchases. Suspect others are the same way.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/violent-youth-attacks-san-francisco-mall-caught-camera/
The famous study by the non-conservative Putnam (Bowling Alone) suggests that, pace the idiotic slogan beloved by almost all leftists and pronounced ad nauseam (“Diversity Is Our Strength”), a low level of diversity is highly conducive to the maintenance of a high-trust society, as in Japan. Anyone possessing the slightest familiarity with the history of our rather bellicose species knows that the less the diversity within a group, the greater the likelihood of inner harmony, although, human nature being what it is, some conflict and discord, as well as disharmony and mistrust, will always exist.
The downward spiral happened at a local mall. In its post-mall life, it became part of the community college system.
Another nearby dead mall got revived into an open-air shopping center. Most of the mall was torn down for a Wal-Mart, which was reduced in size in favor of providing space for smaller retail outlets- not under a mall’s roof. It’s doing fine.
In my neighborhood, a lot of dead retail has been torn down with apartments-some with retail on the first floor- built in their place. There was a country and western dance hall/night club where a fellow homeowner and I argued politics for years- he of the yellow dog Democrat persuasion- which went out of business several years ago. Apartments are being built in its place.
Regarding locked-up, I recently purchased some socks at the aforementioned Wal-Mart that were under lock and key. Spending $4 for 6 pairs of socks that were under lock and key does not make sense to me. That they were Grateful Dead socks adds some humor.
The mall thing is partly the so called “the retail ice age” effect. Here is an older article on it, showing that it predated covid.
https://www.financialsense.com/jim-puplava/seven-megatrends-decades
They chalk it up to online purchasing, but I think it also has to do with the home becoming more of an entertainment place than before, with online streaming, gaming, fancy patios and back yards, etc.
I don’t know why one mall should be so different than another. Although I do recall that one small town I lived in was odd in that it had a very high average income, but the people tended to be tight with their money, conservative and religious. When a new restaurant opened, it did well for a few months as people checked it out, and then faded away as people went back to their dining at home habits. Not your typical town. So communities do vary greatly.
I’ve also heard people comment on our local coastal California malls. Oh how nice. It’s all set up to be outdoors. Contrast that with The Mall of America in Minnesota designed for -20F weather.
“The Mall of America in Minnesota designed for -20F weather”
Reminds me of the downtown underground mall in Montreal. Ingeniously designed for the winter.
We have nearby to us a very large outdoor “mall” (River City Marketplace, North Jax). Basically about 5 square city blocks all built for shopping…big box stores, smaller boutique stores, restaurants. It’s always bustling.
San Mateo Fashion Island was a mall south of San Francisco that went into decline in the 90s. It seemed to be too far south for San Francisco customers and too far north for Silicon Valley. Or something.
We called it the Ghost Mall. It was strange to go into a big mall that was largely dark and deserted.
Just a few short decades ago in uniquely high trust America people all over our country would quite often leave their doors unlocked at night, let their children play outside until dinner time, would likely feel comfortable in picking up a hitchhiker, and could be fairly certain that someone who contacted them was not trying to pull some sort of scam on them.
Constant vigilance, suspicion, and being wary of strangers was not—as it is today— the default attitude of anyone who has any common sense, and “security cameras” did not increasingly sprout from every building and private house as they increasingly do today.
Destruction of America’s uniquely high trust society was and is obviously one of the Left’s primary goals because—once you destroy that high level of trust, which binds individuals, communities, and society together and strengthens them—carrying out your overall campaign of destroying the Republic becomes so much easier.
P.S.—I’m not asserting that some group of Leftist masterminds got together and created a master plan to change the US from a high trust society into what is increasingly—and all too quickly— turning into a low trust one.
What I am saying is that end result of many different leftist policies, statements, and actions over the years has been to cause our formerly high trust society to degrade into a low one.
One mall in Raleigh is booming, and another is dying. One took stringent steps early on to stop teenaged gangs from hanging out, and the other didn’t.
Decline us a choice. If Arnold Toynbee didn’t say it, then Victor David Hanson surely does.
This posted at Zerohedge from blogger Jim Quinn is as epic in comparison of the Decline of Rome ans current history as I’ve yet seen. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/quinn-fall-american-empire-descent-new-dark-ages
It is long. It is thorough. It is powerful. It is US, now.
As Aaron Clarey says, “Enjoy the decline.” What else can we do?
Worried about AI, a potential SKYNET, and how things might work out?
Take a look at this article at https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/01/us-air-force-ai-drone-kill/
In an Air Force R & D program an AI directed drone’s program awarded the AI points for identifying and then destroying a target, with a human controller having the final say as to if a particular target was to be destroyed.
The AI identified the target, but it was ordered not to destroy it.
As a result, the AI decided that it needed to destroy something to get more points, so it tried to destroy it’s human controller instead.
Then, when this AI’s programming was modified, to tell it not to try to kill it’s human controller, the AI devised other, indirect methods, such as destroying the communications tower that it’s human controller used to send it commands.
Too devious by half.
https://www.aerosociety.com/news/highlights-from-the-raes-future-combat-air-space-capabilities-summit/
It’s a retro trend. Neo if you’re from Massachusetts, then you might remember Lechmere stores, a franchise started by an immigrant. It was a bare bones storefront with a small lobby. You would thumb through the catalog, choose your item, fill out a little paper slip and take it to the counter, where the cashier waited. You’d pay up, the order would go to the warehouse, and presto! a few minutes later, your new toaster oven would come down the rollers to the pickup counter and you’d be on your way.
It was no frills, cheap merchandising – and it turns out it would probably be great for Walgreens too. No shoplifting possible, much less allowed.
It’s the same old model that was the common grocery experience before Piggly Wiggly transformed the nation into aisles and self-service shopping.
Back in the day most houses had a nice ‘front porch’ where folks sat out on and enjoyed the evenings. Neighbors would stop by (you actually knew them), children ‘played’ along the street and front yards, under watchful eyes of many families. Who thought getting rid of porches and hiding on an ‘out back’ patio would be an improvement? Shopping? If you can’t find it at a yard sale … you don’t need it : )
As a young child, in the early 1950s, in the major city I grew up in, I used to walk what was probably a couple of miles each way to school each day, and thought nothing of it.
Later, as a young teenager, walking to the movie theater with my girlfriend one Saturday, someone popped out from between two cars, tried to rob me, and when I resisted, slugged me a couple of times. Went to the cops, rode around with them to find the perp, but never found the guy; back then the streets were already getting more dangerous.
In the major city I grew up in people did indeed walk around and visit neighbors in the evenings in our suburban neighborhood and then, say, around, the late 50s I started to notice fewer and fewer people out on the streets in the daytime, and very few people just strolling around in the evening. This all coinciding with a rise in crime.
Gosh, those AI things sure are pedantic sonsovagun.
(BTW, how does one code a conscience for them? Or ambivalence, for that matter. Or ambiguity… or delayed gratification/satisfaction….masochism…?)
There is a great deal of trust at Walgreens. They trust the pattern they have recognized in a certain group will be consistent over time. Thus the anti-theft design. We should thank, or congratulate, the man who said he would fundamentally transform America.
I haven’t been to an enclosed mall in years – one of the biggest here in San Antonio was torn down and converted to an outdoor shopping center – it’s still pretty lively, with a theater, some boutique hotels, a party venue for children’s parties, and a couple of other enterprises.
I think a lot of malls were pretty much interchangeable, though. Same big-name anchor stores, same kind of smaller stores and services. One of my favorites, and the most eccentric of the lot, Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego died the death about fifteen years ago, and now is being converted to offices. I was very sad to hear of this – it was a lively and colorful place, with banners and beautiful flower plantings, but the last time we visited, it was sad, tatty and run down. A lot of the specialty stores had closed.
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/62595.html
“There was a certain sameness to almost all big-city malls, though – which is why I believe that all but one merged into a bland beige same-ness in my memory, no matter if they were in Burbank, Albuquerque or the Newgate Mall in South Ogden. Pretty much the same set of stores, the same look, the same amenities, and many of them hanging on by a thread at present. I suppose the reasons for this are as varied as the malls eventually weren’t. The inconvenience of the mall experience, a preference among the shopping public for on-line ordering, the fact that interesting one-off merchants were pretty much priced out of even setting up in a mall in the first place, that some malls became notorious for lawless behavior, and even something as other formats in large-scale retail becoming fashionable among the movers and shakers in our civic planners.”
Hello. I suppose I would characterize this sort of thing as an indication that the country is dissolving into multiple more or less separate societies.
In the broadest strokes, the urban vs. rural dichotomy is one example of that, but I’m just going to wonder here out loud whether it might be a little inaccurate to think of “urban,” as in big-city urban, as all its own society. I could compare, for example, Chicago with Kalamazoo. Both would, I suppose, be classed in that most high-level comparison as ‘urban,’ but they are very different places with different levels of social trust prevailing (at least still for now). I would imagine that if I were to walk into a Walgreens in the latter city – take the one at 760 West Michigan Ave., for instance – I would probably not find a whole lot of amped-up security measures there, at least not as much as if I were to walk into one in the Loop or Center City in Philly.
(OT: I was just noticing, while scanning the map of my hometown for other Walgreenses, that the jewelry store by the TV station that used to get robbed once or twice a year has been replaced at some point by a garden supply place. Could that mean the trust quotient on that side of town has increased slightly? Or the opposite?)
But for me, the larger point is that over time, except for the Northeast Corridor and the California coast, cities tend to become more like those little bits of fruit stuck in Jello.
TJ
I think the article is dead on. I think we are in a dynamic that there is no pulling out of given lack of culture, fiscal policy, destruction of the family and degradation of what constitutes individual character plus conversion of the social contract into “where’s mine”.
All the talk and postings about this or that candidate or policy are just sideshow.
Rachael Rollins, who had to quit her US Attorney’s job, was in a road rage incident at Boston’s South Bay Mall a few Christmases back. Even she called it a place full of low-lifes. The last time I was there, homeless junkies were congregating at the bus stop. More than just a few aisles of medicines and toiletries in the Target were in plastic lockboxes, and there was a bootlegger out front selling menthol cigarettes, which are now illegal in Massachusetts. Even the suburban malls are usually empty, though.
I always marvel that before COVID, America was expecting an urban renaissance. Retirees were going to downsize and move in closer to the cities. Young people brought up in suburbs and mini-mansions who didn’t want to mow lawns (or more likely, pay to have lawns mowed and driveways shovelled) would move into the cities. One new illness, a year of lockdowns, a wave of rioting and crime-friendly DAs, and all that is gone.
There was also the idea that, globally, cities would be the great drivers of economic growth and would increasingly disassociate themselves from the lagging hinterlands. That’s not happening in America. I wonder how it is elsewhere.
Who could have seen this coming? Take a country that 60 years ago was racially homogenous excepting 10-12% of the population, was almost entirely English speaking, had a common culture (with distinct regional subcultures), and was overwhelmingly Christian, and in the space of two generations turn it into the “polyglot flop house” that Theodore Roosevelt warned about. What did the ruling managerial class think was going to happen?
A country like that needs a large, intrusive government to referee the squabbles that invariably arise from the various frictions caused by dissimilar “tribes” having their own customs and ways of conducting everyday life. Could this all have been an accident?
Never attribute to incompetence what can be explained by malice.
Great Lakes Mall in Mentor, Ohio has a Spencer’s Gifts! A freaking Spencer’s Gifts!
As a young child, in the early 1950s, in the major city I grew up in, I used to walk what was probably a couple of miles each way to school each day, and thought nothing of it.
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A circle with a radius of two miles covers an area of 12.5 miles. The population density in the core city where I grew up was about 9,000 persons per square mile in 1950. In an area of 12.5 miles, you’d expect to find about 115,000 people and 25,000 school age youths (given the age distribution of the population of that era).
A country like that needs a large, intrusive government to referee the squabbles that invariably arise from the various frictions caused by dissimilar “tribes” having their own customs and ways of conducting everyday life.
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It doesn’t need that. The squabbles are ginned up by professional class types who then use them as an excuse to harass others. Immigration policy has since 1965 been bad for a number of reasons, but the problems are not being generated by the vernacular population (the criminal class the obvious exception). The immigrants present challenges, but the real enemy is in the apparat.