Assignment 3: Simone

Timothy Davis writes about how more affluent populations are beginning to spend their money in more "glamorous" places than the strip. They are choosing to shop in areas further out, toward the periphery of cities, in new shopping malls and restored historic downtowns Since investment has been taken out of the strip it has turned into a "no mans zone". Buildings begin to deteriorate, while their parking lots remain empty.

Cumberland Mall may not be the traditional example of the strip, but since we are in an era were shopping malls and outside shopping districts are the new strips, these will naturally have to become the areas of disinterest, while investment and capital move into newer places or historical renovation projects. Cumberland Mall exhibits elements of this disinterest from a specific demographic as many of the quads in the mall have been taken over by independent, non-name brand urban stores instead of higher name brand stores. For example, Abercrombie and Fitch used to be part of this quad I have photographed, but left several years ago. There are some spaces that are left empty with no tenants to occupy them. Although, when I went to Cumberland Mall I noticed the parking lot was fairly full and the inside was busy with shoppers. Most of the shoppers were Black/African-Americans, although there were other races and people from other ethnic backgrounds there. I also noticed that the mall did not have any high end anchor stores, like Nieman's and Bloomingdales, which Lenox Mall does have. It does however have many newly added chain restaurants. These additions to the mall's exterior may be an attempt to attract more shoppers and keep the ones that are left so they do not turn into an abandoned "strip" or mall. An example of an almost abandoned mall would be DeKalb Mall where cars in the parking lot are scarce and almost no name brand stores are left. The ones that are there, are sporting good stores, and this is largely because they offer a consumable product for the small market that is left there.