There is a large mostly abandoned shopping center near where I live.

[Retrograde]

60. Many US cities had local department stores

I'm too late to remember I. Magnin and City of Paris in San Francisco, but when I was growing up in Buffalo there were several large local department stores, some of which tried to adapt by opening branches in malls. They're all gone now, as are most of the malls.

Amazon its merits, but it's not what I call shopping: it's buying. Every so often I want to just go to a bunch of shops and look at what they have to offer, and maybe even buy something that I can see and touch.

As for converting old malls to housing - I've yet to see one that has decent lighting - aside from outdoor ones