Malls died because of urban planning practices where cities and towns would approve new development where there wasn't enough population to support the new and the existing. So you'd get open air outlet malls going in 5 miles from an existing mall, and people would rush to the new shiny thing. The exodus would leave the older mall without a way to pay for maintenance, and it would start to get shabby. Meanwhile, there's a new shopping center going in a few miles away again and the outlet mall people knew better to spend a huge amount of money building it to last, so it's already getting shabby when the people abandon it for the new shiny down the street.

This is incentivized because elected officials look great for "bringing in jobs", and the hollowed-out buildings this leaves behind don't become obvious for years--and the electorate isn't the greatest about drawing a straight line between these dead zones and the people they elect anyway.