The death of the department store and the American middle class
Posted on AllSides November 30th, 2020
From The Left
ANALYSIS
The collapse of America’s middle class crushed department stores. Amazon and the pandemic are the final blows.
In a New Jersey suburb seven miles west of Midtown Manhattan, the American Dream is on shaky ground.
The Dream in question isn’t the mythological notion that upward social mobility is within reach for all hard-working Americans. It’s a $5 billion, 3 million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex in East Rutherford featuring an indoor ski slope, an ice-skating rink, and a Nickelodeon-branded amusement park. The complex finally opened last fall, but it’s now facing...
