Ryan: Who will save our shopping malls now?

February 12, 2020

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Kevin is an award-winning writer who focuses on long-form literary nonfiction and investigative reporting.

A woman in a black-and-white sweater vacuumed Gardner-Collier jewelry store. No customers. No reason to vacuum.

Penn Central Mall in Oskaloosa, Iowa, a town of roughly 11,000 people. The building looks like hell, attached to a Hy-Vee and a Goodwill.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

But on Feb. 3, 2020, the mall showed hints of activity in anticipation of Democratic presidential nominee Andrew Yang. Three or four dozen people, all wearing Yang 2020 apparel. Including the cheeky "MATH" hat.

"Is he here?" they kept asking.

Yang had spent the past few weeks with Dave Chappelle, who performed a few shows, and made calls, including this gem.

And now, with the caucuses in a day, it was time to let Iowans decide.

Walk through the tinted doors into the south entrance of Penn Central Mall, and to your right, for an uncomfortably long distance, a wall of trinkets and knick-knacks and replica souvenirs. Useless trophies. All the other hallways throb with wallpaper that clearly hadn't been updated since 1980, so the whole place resembled the hotel from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Besides the Yang supporters, there were only a dozen other people, and they seemed to walk in circles, saying nothing.

No kiosks. No food court. Not even a Wetzel's Pretzels.

Photo, caption: The same cheesy song blared out of a boombox around the corner as a color-guard team practiced, huddling into one corner of the giant carpeted promenadePhoto by Kevin Ryan

Then, turn left, past the Merle Norman Cosmetics with an old green sign. Toward an arcade — now abandoned, chain-locked, doors tinted. You can still see banks of pinball machines and air hockey tables and videogame cabinets like at the old-school pizzerias.

Across from the shuttered nail salon with no window was Andrew Yang's 2020 Presidential Oskaloosa headquarters.
He Intentionally chose abandoned malls like Penn Central Mall for his campaign sites.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Because he believes in the cultural and commercial revitalization of these American institutions. His idea is an extension of his human-centered capitalism: "Humans are more important than money. The unit of a Human Capitalism economy is each person, not each dollar. Markets exist to serve our common goals and values."

With the American Mall Act, Yang would "redirect tax incentives away from big-box retailers and toward more sustainable employers—or even non-commercial uses."

What's more American than a shopping mall?

Unfulfilled

In the 22nd season of South Park, the town gets an Amazon fulfillment center, which quickly becomes a monopoly, and it destroys local business, employing everyone so that their wages become a kind of company scrip they use exclusively for Amazon purchases, a reference to Amazon's "gamification" system.

The villain, Jeff Bezos, resembles Star Trek's Talosians, the ghastly, bulb-headed aliens, who plan to capture the USS Enterprise and enslave its crew for the purposes of breeding. Bezos monitors the townspeople through their Amazon Echo devices.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

In "Unfulfilled" the ninth episode, the factory workers go on strike, and Bezos cuts off their accounts. Unexpected heroes emerge from a derelict mall, former employees who've been trapped there so long they turned green and mangled and rotten, hideous creatures based on the Morlocks, an underground-dwelling from H.G. Wells's novel "The Time Machine."

The mutant mall workers become scabs and the fulfillment center. And, after a bizarre revolution that involves Santa Clause and a cannabis farm and a talking piece of feces, the entire town shows up to City Hall to tell Bezos that they're taking their town back.

Dead Malls

There's something post-apocalyptic about dead malls. A once extravagant giant, eroding. Former cathedrals of consumption slumping into vacancy and disrepair.

So naturally the disintegration of a once-vital cultural institution has both alarmed and intrigued us. You know how there's a subreddit for everything? Dead Malls is a running catalogue of all things Dead Mall, and with 78,000 subscribers.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

One estimate holds that roughly one in four malls in America will close by 2022.

The dead mall phenomenon began in the early 1990s, as the vacancy rate started to rise and the consumer traffic began to dwindle.

Department store giants like Macy's and JcPenney, bring traffic, serve as anchor tenants, that draw people to the mall, making them vital for the success of the smaller businesses that rely on passersby.

Enclosed shopping malls, once an emblem of Post-War America, began losing customers to big-box stores like Walmart, Ikea, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond.

Department store giants began to feel the hit. And when they hurt, every part of the shopping mall ecosystem suffers.
Then — Bezos.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

E-commerce accounted for 12 percent of retail sales in the country, amounting to $3.46 trillion, up from 3.6% in 2008.

2007 marked a tipping point, the first time in 50 years that no new enclosed shopping malls were built in America. Not one. It was five years before another was built, City Creek Mall Center in Salt Lake City. In 2010 came the retail apocalypse, when brick-and-mortar retail stores began closing at a steepening clip.

The first thing everyone I talked to about this story said, "Malls are dead because of Amazon."

Yes. But research indicates that the issue is far more complicated, with numerous variables involved. Real estate research group Costar pointed to the cost of upkeep, shifting demographics and out-of-date tenants.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Our expectations for a shopping experience have evolved. More often, open-air markets and outlet malls give us what we once found in the massive concrete compounds of enclosed shopping malls.

There are a few oddities. Ulta Beauty, the cosmetics chain, is booming in malls. Dave & Busters, with its flexible real estate model, has done incredibly well, with 10 percent growth a year, a third of their locations are inside malls.

The commentary about shopping malls is often either bleak — malls are dying and will soon be obsolete — or optimistic — malls are just evolving to fit the needs of our digital world.

In reality, it's a blend of both.

The way we shop has changed, with Amazon. Because we're also changing the way we spend money. And we're never going to go back. But that doesn't mean we have to get rid of malls. And not all malls are in trouble.

And we can always rest our hope on Gen Z.

Shopping Mall Ecosystem

The success or failure of a mall usually depends on the area it's located. Malls in wealthier communities continue to thrive.They've undergone a revitalization. Malls in middle-class and lower income areas, however, are suffering.

Abandoned malls also happen to be bad for neighborhoods, with less traffic and industry, the crime rates increase. When a mall sinks, it brings the surrounding neighborhoods down with it.

Malls are ranked on a three-tiered system. Class A, Class B, Class C, with A being the most successful and C the least. These are determined by sales per square foot, the average revenue divided by the selling area in square feet. At the very top of the foodchain, you've got Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, which stands as the most valuable mall in America, boasting $1,450 sales per square foot, with a $5.74 billion total asset value.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

So pick a city. Take my hometown, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for instance.

Class A malls are the thriving malls Simon Property Group, General Growth Properties, Macerich and Westfield, with $500 or more in sales per square foot. Like Woodland Hills Mall, near Broken Arrow. It boasts Tulsa's only Apple Store, of the 272 nationwide. Owned by Simon Property Group, it has two bus routes, 580 seats in its food court. There's even a Texas De Brazil Brazilian steakhouse. Located in a thriving area, with big-box stores and restaurants. It's the mall you go to when you want to see the fancy Santa.

The drop-off from Class A is fairly sharp. Class B malls aren't doing well at all, with $300 to $500 in sales per square foot. Promenade Mall has fiddled with repossession — did you know that malls can be repossessed? — but the traffic is still decent because it's more centrally-located. In April of this year, the JCPenney will be closing, Dillard's will be the only anchor store. But while vacancies are noticeable, there are tenants to replace them, however unconventional. Like how the former Mervyn's has been converted into a Sky Fitness & Wellbeing, a Tulsa-based gym chain.

Class C malls are in bad shape, sometimes worse than bad. Less than $300 in sales per square foot, with high vacancies, usually in lower income areas, on the brink of bankruptcy or abandonment. And "greyfields" are malls where the annual sales-per-square-foot drops below $150.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Eastland Mall, in East Tulsa, the most inaccessible of the three, in a less developed area. A gradual slide from the 1990s. Closures in the early 2000s. Unable to find brand-name tenants, the owners leased to dance studios, martial arts schools, even a country music bar and a wedding chapel. By 2006, it had become a dead mall, and the Simon Property Group put it up for sale. It's at this point of a mall's life when things can get pretty ugly. But Eastland serves as proof that even a gutted mall can be brought to life.

A North-Carolina developer bought it for $2.8 million, rebranded it as Eastgate Metroplex, renovated it, and now it's used as office space, with call centers for Coca Cola, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Capital One. A University of Phoenix campus, a food-handler permit training center, a family health clinic, and a DMV, with the mall's entire lowel level as its waiting area.

Recycling

A 17-minute drive from Washington D.C. at the Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Virgina, Macy's , a homeless shelter, with 60 beds and toilets uprooted from an abandoned Lord & Taylor.

Google offices at Mayfield Mall in Mountain View, California.

A hockey rink at Hickory Hollow Mall in Antioch, Tennessee.

Following a tornado in 2011 that killed 161 people in Joplin and ravaged the high school, students relocated to Northpark Mall for several years. A few blocks from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, the Galleria at Erieview, known for its glass exterior, once served as a massive urban greenhouse farm called Gardens Under Glass, which has since closed, but the mall has since been remodeled as a YMCA.

Last November, the Mall of America, the biggest mall in the nation, opened a walk-in medical clinic, with a pharmacy, a radiology room, and laboratories.

Fitting, then, that the oldest shopping mall in our country, the Arcade Providence, in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, repurposed its upper two floors into 48 micro-apartments — between 225 and 775 square feet. On the first floor, various boutiques, as well as a bar, a coffee shop, a pizzeria, a bookstore, and a spa.

House of the Lord

The earliest Christians met in their homes or synagogues, not churches. It wasn't until 230 years after the death of Jesus Christ that the first church, the Europos church, was built as a place of worship.

The Bible doesn't include guidelines for where, specifically, Christians have to worship. Joel Osteen holds services in the 16,800-seat arena that many Houstonians still call The Summit, home to the Houston Rockets for 28 years.

Lexington Mall in Lexington, Kentucky, built on the former grounds of Eilerslie estate, constructed by Abraham Lincoln's father-in-law. It began to decline in the early 1990s, and in 2005, the lost the only remaining retailer, Dillard's. Southland Christian Church — an evangelical megachurch founded in 1956 — has several satellite campuses around northeast Kentucky. It bought Lexington Mall in 2010 for $8 million, and rebuilt it into official campus of the church. They use the Dillard's for nurseries and classrooms.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Coffee and hot chocolate, open mic nights , blood drives, concerts, game nights at Church in the Mall, in Heath, Ohio Indian Mound Mall, a C Class mall, a ghost town, with $242 sales per square foot, and no restaurants except a Wetzel's and those are the sloths of the restaurant kingdom — like, not terrible, but would you rather see a sloth or a killer whale?

For a while there, every Sunday and Wednesday, you could find worshippers at the Euclid Square Shopping Mall in Euclid, Ohio. In the old Lane Bryant, was New Praise Ministries. Across from it, in a former One Price Clothing outlet, was World of Faith Christian Center. In total, there were 22 other churches inside the mall. It closed in 2016, because of leaks, demolished two years later. In its place, an Amazon fulfillment center.

Yang Arrives

In Oscaloosa, Yang's supporters all huddled into the crowded shopface of the room, scoping around to catch a glimpse of Yang out the back door. They'd bottle-necked into the room and they appeared to be stuck, clogged.

Yang's bus chugged down the sidestreet behind the mall.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

His wife had traveled along with him. Pictures of the two of them leaving a canvass lunch in Davenport had sprouted up on Twitter.

His red-and-beige scarf, his boxy shoes.

Yang gave the entire speech through a karaoke speaker with a distorted microphone.

He looked tired, indifferent. Maybe, in that moment, he was sick of campaigning.

When he finished, Mark Morrison's "Return of the Mack" started playing through the karaoke speaker. After that, Drake. Fittingly, "Started from the Bottom." Because Yang started from the bottom now he's here.

People asking for selfies or blurting out phrases. To my immediate left, an older man missing some crucial teeth kept shouting, "Andrew! Andrew! Andrew!"

When Yang turned in the man's direction, the man thrusted a wiry baseball hat and a Sharpie toward Yang. A dozen people formed a wall between Yang and the man. But this guy was adamant. Yang stared back, as if perplexed. Nodded, smiled.

Then the man turned his wiry cap around to reveal a giant iron-on patch of a marijuana leaf. "Sign my hat, Andrew!"

Before Yang could fully react, one of his campaign staff ushered him out of the room, apologizing to the YangGang with a sense of imperative.

Photo by Kevin Ryan

Then he was off again. Outside briefly before shuffling back onto the Yang tour bus. From there, he returned to Des Moines, to wait for the results of the caucuses. Then on to New Hampshire, where his 2020 campaign to become president will come to an end.

Still, it's worth remembering Yang's campaign slogans: "Not Left, Not Right, Forward".

New stories come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter. Send all notes, tips, corrections to kryan@blazemedia.com

GLENN

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Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!