The Rise of the American ‘Ghost Box’
Ghost towns were so 19th Century. The newest industrial specters are the massive abandoned box-stores now littering the paved outskirts of any-town America. Lagging sales at America’s big box chains, such as Home Depot, Sears and Kmart, coupled with the bankruptcies of chain stores like Circuit City, Linens n’ Things and Home Depot’s high-end brand EXPO have resulted in massive abandoned ‘ghost boxes’ across the country. These vacant ghost boxes have severe negative effect upon many American towns. Town’s cannot collect tax revenue, jobs are lost and now awkwardly large and unsightly lots, of which there are currently 3,000 empty, are left to deteriorate, bringing down real estate prices in the surrounding areas.
Some towns have successfully reused the spaces, finding tenants such as churches, indoor go-cart tracks, and museums. None of these particular ventures bring in the same amount of tax revenue as the cooperate retail tenants but they nonetheless help alleviate the pain of the ghost box.
The rise of the American ghost box highlights the ongoing effect of the financial crisis on the American landscape. In a way, these mega-stores were a symptom of our over inflated consumer habits. We would drive our massive cars to these massive stores and load up excessive amounts of goods on our credit cards. Now as all these frivolities contract, who know what more we will see. Perhaps a return to the centralized town that helped define the American 20th century experience?
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