The traditional town shopping center is almost a thing of the past. It has been replaced by a concentrated shopping area known as the mall. The mall serves as an area to shop, a teenage hanging area and an area to scam people. Did you ever notice that the person that asked you for change for the bus because he lost his wallet was doing the same thing the next time you went to the mall?

All malls are not created equal. The Mall of America in Minnesota is the Goliath of malls. It is visited by 35 to 42 million people per year. Over 12,000 people are employed there. Currently the store count in the mall is around 520. The mall attracts more visitors per year than Disney World, Graceland and the Grand Canyon combined. At the other end of the spectrum are places like Carolina Circle Mall, for all intents and purposes, is almost the ghost town of malls. Many of its buildings haven't been occupied for over twenty years and of the three main anchor stores, two are gone and one, Montgomery Ward is not doing well. All the theaters are closed, as is the skating rink.

Other things are said to be going on at malls, out worldly things. There is the worker in a clothing store in the Mall of America that claims that a recently deceased young woman is seen coming into the store. She moves clothes and throws things. The employees at the store don't seem to like this. A worker at the Westside Pavilion shopping mall in West Los Angeles states that something happened several years ago, something very very strange. She was shopping when she was tapped on the shoulder. She was startled and turned around to see who it was. There stood someone she hadn't seen in many years. Her friend said to her that she had gotten old and put her hands on her face, they were ice cold. Just then, right before her, her friend disappeared. She was paralyzed with fear. An old lady at the mall screamed. She had also seen the woman disappear into thin air. A man approached her to tell her he saw the ghost appear right behind her.

Various murders and assaults also take place in malls. A woman was loading her car outside of the Spotsylvania Mall, which is located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was daytime and in the afternoon when a sniper's bullet pierced her body. There is a mall on Long Island, in New York that has been the scene of numerous muggings and assaults as are many other malls. According to a famous magazine, some mall managers may be hiding the true crime statistics for their mall, after all, who would want to go to a mall where there was a lot of crime being committed?

What about good deals on items, do malls offer us lower prices? Well it doesn't seem so, what they do offer might be considered convenience, the convenience of having many different stores all near each other, thus eliminating the driving between stores. Having said this, it is possible to find bargains at the mall also. If shopping online ever catches on to the extent that it becomes the dominant way to shop, this will, most likely, be the most convenient shopping method.

A British survey indicated that on any given Saturday, just slightly over 50 percent of all money spent would be spent in a mall. In Britain the largest age group to shop in a mall was listed as 15-24 years old with 35-44 years a close second.

We live in a new era now. The security we once thought we had, doesn't really exist. We have to determine if we feel safe shopping in an area where thousands of other people are present. Malls could one day turn into targets. but let's hope that never happens. Malls are appearing all over the world and in most places where they are built, they are a success. It seems that given enough time, every country in the world will have fast food restaurants, malls, Walmarts, Sears etc.. Even the culture in these countries is getting to look eerily similar.