Do American Teens Still Need the Mall? | Eater

"A once-grand, five-floor glass-domed downtown shopping complex now visibly diminished from its peak of 100+ stores to roughly the 50s, with a penthouse food court of neon, off-brand stalls and stair-like spiraling escalators. The loss of a major department store hit the community hard, even as Alaska’s unique oil-funded Permanent Fund Dividend gives local teens disposable income spent on mall trinkets below. The top-floor food court functions as a safe, social refuge for teenagers and families — a place of evacuations-turned-anecdotes, guarded preteen dates under a watchful parent, Alaska Native visitors taking a rare break from subsistence life, and the odd malladult nostalgia — all underscored by a sense that the mall’s commercial life is ebbing even as its social life endures." - Jamie Loftus