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Face It: Retail in Full Scale Retreat

We are not talking manageable erosion anymore—it's become clear now that the bricks and mortar retail world is in full-scale retreat. The new concepts…

By Jonathan D. Miller | jonathandmiller | Updated on April 17, 2017

Jonathan D. Miller Jonathan D. Miller

We are not talking manageable erosion anymore—it’s become clear now that the bricks and mortar retail world is in full-scale retreat. The new concepts are no longer in store, they are online, and real estate owners better wake up fast.

As we have commented before, compared to the rest of the world, the US has been grossly over-retailed with store space for decades. Developers morphed product from downtowns to suburban malls, then into Big Box formats, and leisure centers, complementing an array of grocery-anchored strips stretching along thoroughfares in every direction. There was always some new store concept to attract shopper traffic, even when urban retail in older cities and then outlier regional shopping centers failed. Conspicuous consumption and easy credit fueled a splurge in retail spending until the 2008 banking crisis exposed an unsustainable spendthrift culture. Now in the new Era of Less, the US may be near full employment, but jobs pay less and many Americans live without an adequate safety net—little or no savings and the specter of reduced government benefits and higher healthcare costs.

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