"The United States of Generica"

The mallization of America continues:

Farewell, Filene's

The folding of Filene's into Macy's is part of a homogenizing trend in which our country is becoming the United States of Generica. Suburban shopping malls are already gone: few have unique local businesses, all have essentially the same national chains, and it's hard to tell one from another. In south Florida, which takes this cookie-cutter trend to an extreme, it's hard even to find a locally owned restaurant.

Downtown malls are moving in the same direction, except that they are more upscale. Increasingly, it is hard to tell malls like Copley Place or Prudential from airport duty-free shops.

But to the extent that downtowns are what give cities like ours their special character, it seems almost a crime to turn them into indistinguishable generics. The process takes away what makes a city feel special to the locals, and also makes it less attractive as a destination for visitors. (What is left of the unique feel of a city can always be Disneyfied, completing the corporate process).

I didn't realize until after I chose the name for this blog that Disney has an attraction called "Main St. USA". (I get lots of traffic from that search.) I chose the name because I grew up on Main Street, in a town so small the houses didn't have numbers. Little did I know that Disney had already chosen the name to represent the generic US street. The United States of Generica, I'm going to have to use that phrase.