Dead Malls and Third Places

In an era marked by the decline of modern North American malls, the Austrian architect and planner Victor Gruen’s legacy for suburban shopping centres as local community hubs has undergone drastic change.[1] Suburban shopping centres, once meant to realize Gruen’s vision, instead became encircled by asphalt parking lots rather than including open green spaces.[2] By drawing business away from downtown cores, they hollowed out city centres, straying from Gruen’s dreams. As these changes unfolded, Gruen expressed disappointment near the end of his life in the late 1970s and eventually disavowed the extent to which commercial interests had shaped his concepts, believing they had diverged sharply from his original vision.[3]

By the mid-2000s, amid these ongoing transformations, North American malls faced a recession.[4] By the 2010s, malls were no longer as popular as they had been in the mid and late twentieth century and faced plans to relocate, redevelop, or be completely demolished. This shift was accelerated by the rise of big box stores, online shopping, and home delivery, which rapidly replaced malls struggling with changing consumer habits.[5] Consequently, mall sales are declining, demographic patterns are changing, and the development of new shopping centres has slowed considerably.[6] Taken together, these developments have culminated in the dead or dying malls phenomenon.

This phenomenon was described in a 2010 article by geographers at the University of Toronto. Authors Vanessa Parlette and Deborah Cowen characterize it as having a ghostly spectre, one that “is haunting devalorized postwar suburban landscapes across the United States and Canada - the spectre of ‘dead malls.’”[7] Dead and dying malls are often defined by economic frameworks focused on financial loss. 

Yet, by exploring their roots in postwar suburban development, their repurposing for creative uses, and their significance for marginalized community groups, these malls become much more than failed economic ventures: they are complex spaces with social, historical, and cultural roles. To understand these new dimensions, it is helpful to look back at the origins of postwar shopping centres, which were designed as commercial landmarks within expanding North American suburbs, built to meet the needs of increasingly mobile, affluent families after World War II. [8] 

However, by the early 2000s, as the dead mall phenomenon grew, these spaces became known as dying neighbourhood malls in areas no longer considered suburban. As Parlette and Cowen explain, suburban malls were largely "cast as a redundant urban form, similar to the postwar suburbs in general."[9] Despite seeming empty, these malls began to support creative community uses within private retail spaces. Although malls have a history of exclusion and surveillance—where private ownership and security measures reinforce race and class boundaries in marginalized communities—they have also evolved.[10]

Neighbourhood malls became vital local spaces, offering public access and fostering community life. This shift demonstrates how malls have been repurposed as community anchors, especially in struggling neighbourhoods.[11] In this way, the postwar suburban mall, now often called the dead or dying neighbourhood mall, evolved from a commercial landmark into a central community hub, functioning as a third place that supports social, civic, and cultural engagement.

To better understand the significance of this evolution, it is important to ask: What is a third place, and why is this concept crucial for understanding the changing role and continuing relevance of today’s dead malls? A third place refers to a setting for people to socialize beyond home (the first place) or work (the second place).[12] Examples of third places include libraries, parks, pubs, city squares, and local shops: informal public settings for social life. To function well, ideal third places should offer comfort, cleanliness, climate control, seating, shelter, and thoughtful design. Furthermore, third places are vital to an area’s social infrastructure: spaces, organizations, and facilities that foster community bonds.[13] 

More than just physical locations, third places foster community connections, offer a sense of belonging, and support public health and well-being.[14] By participating in the activities of third places, community members can exchange ideas, enjoy entertainment, combat isolation, build relationships, learn new skills, and access resources. Beyond general benefits, third places carry deeper implications for the unique community members who often rely on them. For example, youth, seniors, newcomers, low-income, disabled, racialized, and other marginalized folks benefit from the protective factors and resilience mechanisms offered by third places, which can be vital for reducing stress, preventing inactivity, and fighting alienation.[15]

Whether a cafe, barbershop, library, or recreation centre, third places create opportunities for people to meet, relax, play, and participate in social life.[16] While some may not immediately see shopping centres as third places, their unique position as semi-public, semi-private environments highlights how their intended purposes often differ from how people actually use and experience them.[17] Despite being private commercial spaces, malls serve as communal hubs that emphasize social interaction over profit or consumption. To illustrate this, Parlette and Cowen explored community uses at Morningside Mall, a former neighbourhood mall in a lower-income suburban area of Toronto, Ontario.[18]

Though an enclosed mall can be called a private retail space, Parlette and Cowen observe the following about sites like Morningside Mall:

While privately owned and managed, enclosed malls in inner suburbs are at times the only indoor spaces that offer some degree of public access. In spite of the powerful histories of racism, exclusion and surveillance that characterize these ‘cathedrals of consumption,’ enclosed malls came to function as meeting spaces, de facto childcare centres, shelters, Tai Chi studios and drop-in centres. Indeed, spatial practice always escapes and exceeds the conceptions of designers and managers.[19]

Despite ongoing contestations of commercial sites as public spaces, the enclosed neighbourhood malls of past postwar suburban areas continue to function as third places, allowing dead malls to take on new meanings.[20] Westgate Mall is no exception.

[1] Emily Badger, “The Shopping Mall Turns 60 (and Prepares to Retire),” Bloomberg, July 13, 2012, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-13/the-shopping-mall-turns-60-and-prepares-to-retire. 

[2] James Powell, “Temples of Commerce,” The Historical Society of Ottawa, accessed October 17, 2025. https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/publications/ottawa-stories/important-public-and-private-buildings-in-the-city/temples-of-commerce. 

[3] Badger, “The Shopping Mall Turns 60 (and Prepares to Retire),” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-13/the-shopping-mall-turns-60-and-prepares-to-retire. 

[4] Badger, “The Shopping Mall Turns 60 (and Prepares to Retire),” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-13/the-shopping-mall-turns-60-and-prepares-to-retire. 

[5] Powell, “Temples of Commerce,” https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/publications/ottawa-stories/important-public-and-private-buildings-in-the-city/temples-of-commerce. 

[6] Badger, “The Shopping Mall Turns 60 (and Prepares to Retire),” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-13/the-shopping-mall-turns-60-and-prepares-to-retire. 

[7] Vanessa Parlette and Deborah Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35, no. 4 (2011): 794, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00992.x. 

[8] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 796.

[9] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 802.

[10] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 795.

[11] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 803.

[12] Gry Rustad Pettersen et al., “Shopping Centres as Third Places: Sociodemographic Differences in Use of Shopping Centres and Non-Shopping Motivations for Visits,” Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning 153 (2024): 2, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105268. 

[13] Jessica Finlay et al., “Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing,” Health & Place 60 (2019), 2, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2019.102225. 

[14] Finlay et al., “Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing,” 1-3.

[15] Finlay et al., “Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing,” 5.

[16] Finlay et al., “Closure of ‘Third Places’? Exploring Potential Consequences for Collective Health and Wellbeing,” 2.

[17] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 795-807.

[18] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 794-811.

[19] Parlette and Cowen, “Dead Malls: Suburban Activism, Local Spaces, Global Logistics,” 795.

[20] Pettersen et al., “Shopping Centres as Third Places: Sociodemographic Differences in Use of Shopping Centres and Non-Shopping Motivations for Visits,” 7.