Doobie in my Pocket by Keller Williams
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/keller2007-06-16.AKG463/KellerWilliams2007-6-16d2t05_64kb.mp3]
I’ve been meaning to post this song for a little while now. Its from his show at Bonnaroo, and been in my head since I downloaded the set. The problem is that since I finished writing about Bonnaroo, I haven’t really felt like writing anything else. I think that’s mostly because while I was writing about Bonnaroo, I was just writing about what was happening. I’m going to try and get back to future plans, weird hypotheticals, and other such nonsense.
So keeping with that theme, I was recently thinking about abandoned malls. I don’t know why, but one of those anti-urbanization groups is likely to blame. I heard the statistic that half of the retail space in the country is empty. When I heard it, that statistic had numbers to go with it, but you can’t expect my brain to hold on to things like that.
But there is all this bemoaning on account of companies pouring all this money into malls, and then leaving them a few decades later. Right now, malls are on the decline. Apparently big box stores (Walmart) are the new malls. I guess that makes sense, economically, at least. So towns are stuck with this massive concrete eyesore that no one wants.
“Well,” I think, “I’d like one.” And that’s how this idea started. I suppose I haven’t even explained that idea yet. But now you know how it started. Once that seed was planted, I noticed it lined up pretty nicely with some of my other dreams. I think communes, or even just really close communities are wonderful places to live. Now lets tie that idea together with old malls. If I were to acquire an abandoned mall, and open it up to housing, we could establish our own little community. It doesn’t need to be self-sustaining, or even a commune. But with enough people, we could manage property tax and utility bills.
Now you know the idea. I started to look into this, and thankfully the internet is on top of it. DeadMalls.com seems to be the authority, but the site isn’t exactly set up for my needs. They list not only dead malls, but perfectly healthy malls as well (for history’s sake). More exploring found sickmalls.wordpress.com, which lists malls which are on their way out, or already deserted. Its a good resource, but not really exhaustive. Lastly, abandonedonline.net which not only lists abandoned malls, but abandoned big box stores, churches, hospitals, schools, towns – everything. So why should I have to settle for a mall?
Big box stores are probably the cheapest to buy once they’re abandoned, but they are just one massive open space. Not really helpful to the commune idea. But all of those other abandoned buildings…sure!
This is a very long-term idea, but I’m going to keep it stewing in the back of my mind. Good things tend to come out of there.
Update: as luck would have it, my RSS reader threw this my way. Which lead me here.
Update 7/26: more MeFi links.