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Hickory Ridge Mall

crossroad

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DoctorGonzo Whistle-Stop

DoctorGonzo

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Hickory Ridge has been on life support for some time. In recent years they've tried to stem the flow of customers and stores, but the mall has long been seen as the spiritual successor to The Mall Of Memphis, which is about the least desirable identity one could ask for.

It wouldn't surprise me if it died.

Crime is spreading East, but I'm sure that the residents in the area around Hacks Cross will find a new place to move even further East and the process that has been repeating itself will continue unabated. It was mentioned in another thread, but one of the people behind the construction of the FedEx HQ was amazed that they located it in an area that would soon face the same fate as so many other Memphis metro neighborhoods.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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All true above. BUT...it's nothing new. It's why America was colonized. It's how the west got settled. It's how Memphis was founded. And it's how Midtown, East Memphis, S. Main, Mud Island, etc. got built. Americans love space and they love NEW. Why should we Memphians be any different?

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mandrws1 Hamlet

mandrws1

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Hickory Ridge has been on life support for some time. In recent years they've tried to stem the flow of customers and stores, but the mall has long been seen as the spiritual successor to The Mall Of Memphis, which is about the least desirable identity one could ask for.

It wouldn't surprise me if it died.

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hgupta Whistle-Stop

hgupta

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I disagree. I recently visited the mall and was pleasantly surprised at how it is still thriving. You obviously are going off of heresay, just as I was, until I actually made a trip to the Hickory Ridge Mall. This is what happens sometimes. It only takes a few people to say bad things about the mall (and neighborhoods in Memphis in general) before things get taken out of context. I think the mall is doing just fine. The Raleigh Springs Mall on the other hand has just about had it.
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bigshow1991 Unincorporated Area

bigshow1991

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I disagree. the Hickory Ridge Mall is always filled with people, but the stores are really lacking. There's almost an empty storefront every other store. But there are people there. I guess its perception about crime and the "population" (mostly black and hispanics) thats keeping new business away. The Southland Mall on the other hand, is always attracting new business to fill vacant spots. Only has about 3-5 vacancies, but hardly has any people there.

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Rardy Burg

Rardy

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It's a process that is detrimental to a city as it is not growth, but transfer of the existing population.

Growth is fine, growth is good, but constant population transfer without substantial population growth is not. The latter is what is occurring, and has occurred in many cities across the country. You end up moving the same people around on the map, and there are serious consequences for the entire community.

First, you have infrastructure investments. When a bunch of people decide their current neighborhood just doesn't cut it, and they want to move to an identical neighborhood a little further out (usually built by the same developers who put up their current subdivision) there is a sudden need for new roads, highways, schools, utilities, police, fire, hospitals, etc. It's all well and good that these currently exist in the "old" (old being very recently developed, but having quickly lost its sheen) neighborhood, but the movement of people demand these be replicated elsewhere.

Somebody has to pay for all of this, and it falls on the back of the taxpayer. Trouble is, roughly the same number of taxpayers are paying for a lot more infrastructure, but it's serving the same number of people at the same level as before. This adds up quickly. Even a modest population increase is not often enough to offset this. Imagine you get a 10% raise at work, but your living expenses go up by 30%. You're not going to say "Great! My income is growing!"...well you might, but you're probably going to be a bit annoyed as well. You lose in the end.

Next, commute times increase dramatically, as people's workplaces usually remain where they are for the time being. Everyone's driving further. At first, it's OK, then it becomes a little annoying, next you're driving from Arlington/Cordova to Downtown in rush hour twice a day. Other cities that have followed this pattern more closely have even longer commute times. Leaving home at 5-6am to get to work at 8 isn't too out of the ordinary.

But wait! Highways don't appear overnight, they take years and tens, and often hundreds of millions of dollars to extend. So the arterial roads leading to the new neighborhoods are instantly overwhelmed as they weren't designed to take that kind of capacity. The people that used to drive 20% of it's length to reach home are now driving 90%, and more often. The same number of people in a city can suddenly clog a street to a standstill. In some cases you can start slapping extra lanes to mitigate the effects, but not begin to solve the problem (Germantown Pkwy) or you face an impossible situation (Walnut Grove).

What happens to the old neighborhoods? If your most affluent customers have moved on, so do you. Investment drops off, and is redirected elsewhere. The whole employment picture changes. High-wage work moves elsewhere. Higher-end retail does, too. Property values decline, thus the property tax revenue decreases, but somebody's got to pay for all of that infrastructure! The burden ends up being dropped in the laps of the citizens who thought they could just was their hands of an area by moving a couple of miles, while locally, the old neighborhood's schools turn to crap which means that you can't count on the next generation to be able to improve matters. Crime becomes a serious issue, one that requires more and more money to combat, the crime discourages investment even more, and the threat of it begins to spread to the new neighborhoods who see it just down the road from them. That, combined with the fact the congestion and other problems from their older, identical community magically reappear in a similarly designed neighborhood, results in another exodus.

Commute times, crime, congestion, taxes, government debt increase, while nobody but the developers selling the new houses really make out with anything to show for it.

That's not growth.

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