3. What new retail concepts can you identify? How might you learn about more? What strategies do you suggest for learning about new retail concepts?

The suburban regional shopping mall is regarded by many as the “crown jewel” of shopping experiences. In a single location, shoppers can visit over a hundred stores, go to a movie, eat, walk, and lounge for an entire day in a secure, pleasant atmosphere sheltered from undesirable weather and the demands of everyday life. Most Americans at one time or another have escaped for the day to such a mall and felt “uplifted” in spirit by the experience. So pervasive is the suburban regional shopping mall that William Kowinski in the The Malling of America (1985) claims that in the United States alone there are more enclosed malls than cities, four-year colleges, or television stations! Indeed, few of us can remember a time when shopping was a trip to “downtown,” or the central business district (CBD) of a large city.