People keep calling malls 'dead' when they're just quiet

Honestly, I see this all the time in photos here. Someone posts a shot of a mall with like 5 stores open and 20 people inside and calls it a dead mall. Tbh, that's just a quiet weekday. A real dead mall is like the old Sunrise Center in Dover, where the last anchor left 3 years ago and the food court is just empty chairs. I went last month and counted exactly two open businesses, a nail salon and a phone repair kiosk. The difference matters because calling everything 'dead' makes the truly fascinating abandoned ones less special. How do you all decide when a mall has actually crossed that line?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_joseph2mo ago

Isn't this just labeling everything as extreme now?

oliver2422mo ago

The term "extreme" has lost all meaning in political talk. It gets slapped on any policy someone just disagrees with, from zoning changes to budget tweaks. That kind of overuse just makes real problems harder to spot.

bencampbell1mo ago

Actually, the word extreme is more useful than ever because it points out when ideas break from the norm. If a zoning change would uproot a whole community or a budget cut would end a vital service, that's a big shift from normal operations. Calling that extreme helps people see the real stakes. Watering down the word just lets truly dangerous ideas sneak by without anyone noticing.