"What it has instead are ten competing theories about what retail should become as the fluorescent purgatory of mall culture fades away. With regard to the wider world, readers believe that Asian cities beta-test the future and Europe buffs its gilded archive. On the other hand, American shopping cities are test labs. Some are wired on data and design. Others run on nostalgia, spectacle, or a kind of stubborn authenticity that hasn't checked the algorithm in years-and isn't about to start now."
"Las Vegas has compressed a short stretch of the Strip into a luxury gauntlet that'll wreck your step count and your credit limit in the same afternoon. Miami hums as a warm-weather clearing house for Latin American taste and capital, part art fair, part duty-free fever dream with better coffee. Santa Fe trades entirely on provenance and connoisseurship, the rare American city where knowing what you're looking at matters more than flashing what you bought."
Voters selected multiple U.S. cities that exemplify different approaches to retail as mall culture declines. Asian cities function as beta-tests for future retail trends and European cities preserve historical luxury. American cities serve as varied test labs: some emphasize data and design, others trade on nostalgia, spectacle, or enduring authenticity. New York and Los Angeles remain prominent, while Las Vegas concentrates luxury on the Strip, Miami channels Latin American taste and capital, Santa Fe foregrounds provenance and connoisseurship, and Orlando highlights immigrant-built neighborhood economies. A shared thread is the persistence of physical, experiential shopping.
Read at Conde Nast Traveler
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