Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, the heyday of the American shopping mall, communities wore their stores like a badge of honor.

A recent walk through my local mall was striking.

Three miles away, another mall, only recently converted into an open-air shopping center, is struggling with both anchors now gone. .

If the mall once represented American economic prowess, the debt local governments have accumulated due to overspending has become a symbol of American greed.

Unfunded liabilities for states and local governments as a result, are estimated at $6 trillion nationwide. 

Swapping your local shopping mall with an indoor amusement park won’t be sustainable without property tax relief forced by mall owners through costly litigation. 

Turning a once-thriving 100-plus store shopping center into an Amazon fulfillment facility might create a few non-automated jobs, but it won’t produce equivalent sales-tax tax revenue

Warehouses and distribution centers are worth less than a shopping mall, with fewer taxable assets. 

Police shortages and spiking crime that spills over into suburban communities are also on the horizon due to ‘woke’ Leftist attacks on law enforcement

There are no easy fixes to this suburban economic meltdown except to demand more government consolidation, more privatization of services, reduction of public payrolls, investments in policing and a reining in of Cadillac union contracts

Without significant reductions in public spending and legacy costs, America’s struggling suburban middle-class risks being squeezed out of existence.