Ghost malls: Half of America’s shopping centres predicted to close by 2030

I’ve had a fascination with abandoned stuff ever since I found a cow skeleton in a rusty farmhouse bathtub when I was a kid. Something about the contrast between the shiny promise of what once was and the reality that has been left to rot for all time.

There are more and more derelict, decaying malls around the place, former shrines to the capitalist dream. “Ruin porn” TV sees people picking through the debris of ghost malls and thinking on shinier, happier times.

Victor Gruen though, inventor of the mall, would not be sorry to see the end of them:

“I am often called the father of the shopping mall,” he once said, reflecting on his career two years before his death in 1978. “I would like to take this opportunity to disclaim paternity once and for all. I refuse to pay alimony to those bastard developments. They destroyed our cities.”