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For American companies that have seen store counts collapse in recent years, the symbolism of having abandoned stores turned into mass vaccination clinics highlights how quickly the world was changing before the pandemic, and how COVID-19 accelerated a shift to an unfamiliar and sometimes dystopian future. The end of the COVID-19 pandemic might be in sight as vaccine shots ramp up, but crumbling malls, the country's haphazard approach to healthcare, and brands looking to capitalize on the "new normal" suggest our new dystopian reality is here to stay. .. Companies like Sears and JCPenney spent over 100 years building their brands into household names — but it took only 10 years for an apocalypse to sweep through the retail industry, leaving vacant stores and dead malls in its wake.


The demise, like so much in the last decade, can be linked to the financial crisis: After the housing bubble burst in the late aughts, many retailers were never quite able to get back on their feet. Hundreds of thousands of employees were out of work, and private equity stepped in, burdening mall brands with massive amounts of debt. The American mall began to face "a death spiral," John M. Clapp, a professor ... "Once a department store goes vacant that tends to be contagious because all those middle-mall stores — the nail salons and the jewelry stores — they are all depending on the traffic coming from the bigger retail stores," A report from Coresight Research... last August estimated that out of roughly 1,000 American malls, a quarter will close down in the next three to five years.


And, of course, it's impossible to ignore the Amazon effect: The Seattle bookseller sparked an e-commerce boom, leading to a race to the top for Amazon and its main competition, Walmart, and opening the direct-to-consumer floodgates... Amazon reportedly held talks with the biggest mall-owner in the US, to discuss converting empty retail space into fulfillment centers that pack and ship Amazon orders. The pandemic has only made matters worse.... after major chains announced closures of more than 12,000 stores in 2020. These vacancies have left malls abandoned, and they readily turned into vaccination sites. ... And though Amazon pays workers $15 an hour, warehouse jobs are more physically demanding ... In lieu of an adequate government safety net to ensure Americans get fair pay and health care even as businesses shutter, brands are left to pick up the pieces.


The complete disruption of the pandemic puts Americans in a position where the "new normal" is a flexible term. As seen by the transformation of malls into vaccination sites... can be completely acceptable in 2021... a broken retail system saving a healthcare system stretched to the breaking point — are not going away. The inclination to turn to companies to fix broken infrastructure can run the gambit from creative at best to disturbing at worst. Domino's announced a campaign to fill potholes in 2018, Light-beer legend Natural Light has spent millions of dollars paying off fan' student loans, Companies like Gap, Target, and Warby Parker helped staff the nation's polls on Election Day by corralling hundreds of thousands of employees to serve as poll workers

And as state governments work to vaccinate their citizens as quickly and efficiently as possible, they've turned to other capitalist symbols of the before-times to help carry out their plans. Beginning in January, lines snaked around the parking lot at Disneyland ... became a "super" vaccination site where hundreds of thousands of doses have been administered. Major league sports stadiums, many of which sat empty and dark for most of last year, have also become mass vaccination sites... Coors beer breweries transformed into hand sanitizer manufacturers. But, relying too fully on corporations whose ultimate focus is their bottom line is not just dystopian, it's dangerous. 
 

 

QuoteA dystopia is a fictional community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is often treated as an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his ...

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