08 February 2010

Northgate 40% Vacant and Bankrupt

I was just on the Enquirer website and made the mistake of reading the comments on a few stories and was (again) completely blown away by the ignorance and hatred of both our city and of our fellow citizens.

Someday, and it won't be long, those people who think the city is a sewer and that Northgate Mall is is going bankrupt because it went "ghetto" will wake up and realize that the world has changed, and doesn't revolve around their old high school rivalries. While scrounging their next meal out of a cheeze doodle bag in their mold-infested "finished" basement they'll get their fat ass out from behind their TV screen and car windshield, and maybe actually walk on a sidewalk and interact with strangers.

Look, malls are history. A new mall has not been built in this country for years. Northgate is not vacant because black people started shopping there. It is vacant because we have too much ugly sprawling crap-selling retail stores, and you keep building more.

Wake up! This is a wide, diverse and beautiful city, and everyday downtown is getting better.

Time to decide: join the crowd and move further out ...or beat the crowd and return to the city.

8 comments:

Andrew said...

amen

Coleman said...

I wrote an article on this subject:

http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php?/contents/comments/empty_suburban_strip_malls_and_other_urban_renewal_observations/

The foreclosure on Northgate mall is a curious development. The rumor mill is also churning about Bass Pro Shops looking to pull out of Cincinnati Mall (a.k.a. Forest Fair Mall), following the recent exit of Treehouse Kids into the old CompUSA building in Springdale on Rt. 747 (right on the main drag).

In this region, I feel that the trend is going to be a consolidation of the old malls into a handful of malls (one of which is already Kenwood Towne Ctr) with a better geographic distribution. These jurisdictions (Fairfield, Forest Park, Colerain Twp, springdale) better wake up and take this opportunity to raze that terrible shell and replace it with perhaps new housing or even a mixed-used planned neighborhood (hey! I can dream, can't I). All of these places sit on some key land along I-275, and the cities are probably losing out on some nice earnings tax revenue that could be recouped if they just gave up on the desire to keep a mall and focus instead on using that land to provide less fickle housing or jobs.

Jason said...

Couldn't have said it better myself!

scott d said...

seriously, just don't read the comments. it is not the pulse of the city. it is just haters on a messageboard.

5chw4r7z said...

the majority of "poor" people now live in the subburbs, the world is starting to invert with the flight now to the urban cores. It's already happening.

McEwan said...

I hate those comment boards.

Avoid them.

scott d said...

@McEwan- I just read your profile. I love all the "mutt" comments!

ThatDeborahGirl said...

LOL. I see more black folks shopping at Kenwood & Tri-County than I ever do at Northgate. Maybe it's time people realized segregation is over.

*sigh* stuff like this makes my head hurt