I recently revisited San Francisco and stayed in the same place I did nearly 20 years ago. I expected some changes, but Union Square was far emptier than before, its vibrancy dimmed after the Westfield San Francisco Centre closed. This stark shift reflects the rapid decline of American shopping malls over the last decade.

The decline of American shopping malls is unmistakable. Last year alone, more than 8,000 department stores closed nationwide, stripping malls of their traditional anchor tenants and triggering further closures, with the mall in San Francisco being the latest victim. The rise of e-commerce and the impacts of high rents, inflation, Covid-19 and department anchor store bankruptcies have driven people away, leaving malls struggling to reinvent themselves.

Nowadays, there are subreddits, forums, and even YouTube channels dedicated to chronicling these spaces as some sort of ancient historic ghost town. In a depressing trend, many interior spaces in these shopping malls have deteriorated into liminal zones.

In academic terms, a liminal space refers to a transitional or in-between area that exists on the threshold between one state and another. The concept originates in anthropology and urban studies, where “liminality” describes places that have lost their original purpose but have not yet transformed into something new, leaving them suspended in time.

In popular culture, the term has come to describe areas that feel surreal, strange, and unsettling: Empty corridors, hallways, parking lots, and abandoned interiors reminiscent of a horror film. That once-bustling malls now evoke this imagery underscores their rapid decline.

In contrast, shopping malls in the Philippines remain crucial to community life, offering more than just retail. From SM Mall of Asia’s diverse amenities (concert grounds, ice skating rink, amusement park rides) to the unique blend of shopping and green spaces at Greenbelt and Trinoma’s integration of transit and community areas, these malls continue to serve as gathering places and economic lifelines in a country with few public alternatives. The sustained social and economic importance of Filipino malls underlines the adaptability that American malls have failed to achieve.

Filipino mall developers understand the need to create multi-purpose destinations. Unlike their American counterparts, they design malls to retain visitors with amenities such as places of worship, fitness centers, activity spaces and comfortable environments for socializing. As a result, Filipino malls successfully foster a strong sense of community while American malls struggle to maintain relevance and reflect a broader uncertainty about their future.

For decades, Philippine urban planning and commercial development have drawn heavily from the American model. Yet in the case of shopping malls, the Philippines may have inadvertently developed a more resilient and culturally attuned framework. While malls are often quick to be villainized locally as symbols of consumerism, it is worth asking whether they have, in practice, become one of the few functioning civic spaces in the country.