Can shopping malls abandoned by time and left to rot by commercial failure or the march of time be revitalised as centres for urban farming and ecologically sustainable communities? There seems to be plenty of evidence that this is indeed a possibility and numerous projects across North America are doing just that. Douglas Rushkoff blogs about it here :
“The failure and abandonment of shopping malls throughout the country has a bright side: smart communities and businesses are turning them into greenhouses for organic agriculture. Talk about a nice urban hack. (Hack, as in its original sense of retooling something for a better purpose.)
If this is the way the post-apocalypse looks, count me in.”
The full story, Future Farmers of the Mall by Katie McCaskey, appears at Spectre.
Some interesting :
Dead Malls – a site which documents the malls which are either shut or in the process of being shut across the United States;
Gardens Under Glass – a feel good story about a slowly dying mall in Cleveland Ohio which is being rejuvenated with an urban farm initiative high in its ostentatious 1980s glass interior;
Core77 – has a story on The Los Angeles Forum’s Dead Malls Competition, which calls for the redesign of “at risk” American shopping malls. “With malls as such major parts of the North American landscape, the competition is very forward looking and optimistic about a more efficient use of space.”
