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Hello, welcome to the Meek by the Fountain episode of Slate Money.

Your guide to what is normally the business and finance news of the week, but this week is the business and finance news of shopping malls.

We are devoting this entire episode to shopping malls, which are the best subject. It's not just me, Felix Salmon of Axios, and Emily Peck of Axios,

and Elizabeth Spires. But we actually have an expert on Alexandra Lang. Welcome. Tell us about

yourself. Who are you? And what is this book that you have written?

I am an architecture and design critic and I have written a book about the history and the future of the shopping mall.

It's a great book and we are going to talk about that on this show. We're going to talk about the Gruen Transfer. We're going to talk about entertainment.

We're going to talk about whether malls are dead, whether online shopping has killed things.

We're going to talk about the human need for proximity.

And Felix will share a very special mall memory.

Oh, yeah.

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