[From "A Vibrant Christmas"]

Online shopping was a blow, but it was something the malls of America might have been able to survive if it were not for the dissemination of vibrancy throughout suburban America:

A shooting inside the Nordstrom department store at the Mall of America on Friday night left a 19-year-old man dead, according to Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges[…]

I used to love going to Rosedale, Southdale, and occasionally, the Galleria, at Christmastime. From the time I was a little boy, they were vast and magical Winter Wonderlands, where children could roam freely and window-shop. I used to wander alone from one end of the mall to the other, with particular attention paid to B. Daltons and Games by James. I still remember being 11 years old and walking back through the parking lot at Rosedale to our Oldmobile station wagon with my father, who was carrying what seemed at the time to be a very large package[…]
This sense of communal magic and wonder is one of the many things that vibrancy has cost America. Perhaps it wasn’t important, perhaps it wasn’t a significant part of the Christmas season, but I loved it as a child and it grieves me to know that it is part of the world that we have lost