The Life and Death of Great St. Louis Malls

Since the 1950s, the spatial development of the surrounding suburbs has been centralized around the shopping mall. From early incarnations like River Roads Mall to downtown redevelopment projects like St. Louis Centre, shopping malls are unique examples that can help us better understand the demographic and cultural shifts in the American consumer culture over the past sixty years. What follows is a historical analysis of three distinct eras shopping mall development and failure in the St. Louis region.

City-to-Suburbs: The Rise of Shopping Malls

Shopping malls as we know them today burst onto the national scene in the 1950s as a response to the suburbanization of America during the post-World War II boom. Single-use zoning, shopping centers, highway development, and subdivisions became the core elements of the post-1950s U.S. spatial development.