Dead mall in the context of "Modern ruins"

A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term mall originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, it began to be used as a generic term for the large enclosed shopping centers that were becoming increasingly commonplace. In the United Kingdom and other countries, shopping malls may be called shopping centres.

In recent decades, malls have declined considerably in North America, partly due to the retail apocalypse, particularly in subprime locations, and some have closed and become so-called "dead malls". Successful exceptions have added entertainment and experiential features, added big-box stores as anchors, or converted to other specialized shopping center formats such as power centers, lifestyle centers, factory outlet centers, and festival marketplaces. In Canada, shopping centres have frequently been replaced with mixed-use high-rise communities. In many European countries and Asian countries, shopping malls continue to grow and thrive.

South China Mall (Chinese: 华南Mall; pinyin: Huá nán) in Dongguan, China (formerly New South China Mall) is the fifth largest shopping mall in the world in both gross leasable area and total area.

South China Mall opened in 2005. For more than 10 years, it was mostly vacant as few merchants ever signed up, leading it to be dubbed a dead mall. In 2015, a CNN story reported that large parts of the mall were "full of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues" after extensive renovations and remodeling, though large portions of the mall still remained vacant. But CNN also added that most of the unoccupied units, in addition to halls and walkways, were still under renovation.