The leading solution to the affordable housing shortage in California has arrived. Every Californian must be a part of a commune in an abandoned department store.
Residents will pick their favorite department store to live in, increasing unity and providing a sense of nostalgia.
Abandoned retail stores provide California with the best chance of reversing the affordable housing crisis because new apartments often replace unaffordable retail space for many Californians.
While real estate developers are also replacing malls with apartments, a more affordable solution exists.
That is because, in some cases, only 10% of the apartments replacing malls in California are below-market-rate. If you can’t afford to shop in malls, you probably won’t be able to live in them — legally, that is.
Fear not, however, for the shelves of department stores make excellent beds.
Though there are still over 1,000 shopping malls in the United States, e-commerce poses challenges to brick-and-mortar stores, leading to empty retail and department stores. As online shopping becomes easier and retail stores face rising costs, malls are seeing a decline in foot traffic.
Similar trends face Hillsdale Shopping Center, San Mateo County’s only major shopping mall.
Hillsdale Shopping Center plans to demolish its indoor section, replacing it with retail, offices, parking garages, and 1.9 million square feet of residences.
The proposal opens up a viable market for department-store living, given that 85% of the housing will be market-rate.
The closing of Sleep Number, another store set to be replaced in the same plan, will benefit future residents of abandoned department stores at Hillsdale Shopping Center.
Mattresses, pillows, and bedding will allow non-affluent residents to construct makeshift beds. Alternatively, residents can bring sleeping bags.
Owners can also help department store residents by keeping the preexisting objects of these stores, like clothes hangers.
According to Adam Verwymeren, a journalist focusing on home economy, clothes hangers can be used for gardening, unclogging drains, and roasting marshmallows (checking for rust).
This housing revolution needs your help, though. Teenagers must change their habits so that malls and department stores will close.
According to a study by the International Council of Shopping Centers, Generation Z is the generation that prefers to shop in malls the most. If teenagers stopped shopping in person, malls would lose a key shopping population and would be more likely to close.
“Gen Zers, by and large, are very much aware of how important it is to stay human in this digital age,” said Roberta Katz, an anthropologist at Stanford, according to CNBC.
The time has come for teenagers, real estate agents, and store owners to think outside the box and usher in a new age of department-store living.
Pick your favorite department store today, not to shop from, but to live in.
