It should come as no surprise that the United States has more retail per capita than any other country. All I need do is drive about 11/2 miles from my house, where another shopping mall has bloomed in the last year or so.
Thanks to what Miller calls "the consumer wave," retail construction has reached unprecedented heights since the late 1990s, when many prophets were predicting that shoppers would abandon "bricks and sticks" for the Internet.
Although, as Miller acknowledges, "Internet shopping is catching on more and more," it hasn't replaced getting in the car and driving to the mall, or hopping on the El or the High-Speed Line and traveling to Center City.
In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, some experts suggested that consumers, fearful of additional terrorist attacks, would respond by staying away from public places, especially malls. Yet one of the major reactions to 9/11 - turning billions of dollars of equity into purchases of goods to turn homes into "cocoons" - was enough to keep retail stores filled.
Although Ted Jones, chief economist for Stewart Information Services, acknowledged that he "worried about terrorism" and predicted that "we are going to have so many of these events that our children and grandchildren will get kind of used to it," this is not what concerns the experts about where retail is going.
What worries economists is the possibility of a recession. Inflationary pressures created by rising energy prices have, according to Jones, resulted in just "two things costing less than they did last year: flat-screen televisions and houses in Florida and California."
Because it is so consumer-driven, if there is a recession, "retail will be vulnerable," Miller said.
After almost a decade of "spend, spend, spend," Americans are admitting they are uncomfortable with the total amount of household debt they have accumulated.
