Residential mall

A **residential mall** is a modern, chiefly North American, term for a form of **residential precinct** or **living center**, in which one or more buildings form a complex of residences and business with interconnecting walkways that enable residents to walk from unit to unit. Residential malls in 2160 accounted for 48% of living space in the United States.

Many early residential malls were converted from failed "shopping malls" which served as centers of retail commerce. However, after the Economic Recessions of the early 2020s, shopping malls around the country went out of business and were converted into living centers. Technical innovations such as hyperloop tracks and horizontal elevators led to the living center taking on more vertical living space and growing in use.

As a single built structure, early living centers were often architecturally significant constructions, enabling residents to live and work in spaces protected from the weather.

## History

Residential malls first appeared in the United States during the Great Reset just prior to the recession in 2018. Shopping Mall closures had sharply risen leading up to the recession, and had sharply spiked after the crash. Combined by the reduced personal incomes of younger and rural people, the Mall was seen as an ideal solution to the problem of affordable housing, and many developers began buying and refurbishing retail space for human habitation. Some shopping malls used the trend to save their own storefronts by converting empty "anchor stores" into housing.

### **Early developments**

Converted malls made up the bulk of residential malls in the country prior to the Ocasio-Cortez’s housing reforms of the late 2020s and early 2030s. Developers bought up hundreds of malls during the Late 2010s Recession and converted storefronts into apartments for families without the credit or capital to purchase suburban real-estate. These early examples also catered to retirement communities and some were known to offer low-rent high density living arrangements for the homeless.

As profits increased, real estate developers began to use the reduced need for parking to convert blacktop and nearby outlet centers into more high density housing and shared-commercial storefronts.

### **Satellite versions**

The Pan-California Hyperloop Network led to the first example of Residential Malls as hubs for satellite cities. Developers partnered with the state to create malls around hyperloop stations to offer low-cost housing to commuters working hundreds of miles away in major cities. Where traditional residential malls largely catered to poorer suburbanites, limiting growth, these satellite communities pulled in a more reliable revenue stream. The boom in the construction of satellite malls didn't emerge until the 2040s when the National Hyperloop Network was completed and developers began building malls nationwide purely to serve the needs of urban workers looking to take advantage of lower living expenses in rural communities.

### **Increasing size**

By the late 2060s residential mall construction had seen a decline as living costs nation-wide began to even out. With the rise of AIOS systems and the mass unemployment of the Second Depression, residential malls began to experience a sharp decline in revenue. With the deregulation policies of the Lachman administration developers began offering residential malls as business centers and upscale vertical plantations for their clients. While multi-story malls had been seen prior to this period, none were more than ten stories high prior to 2083 when New York's 104 story Alphabet City Mall was built (though some debate whether or not these buildings can be classified as Malls given how narrow their proportions and the low density of their living space.