Has America become a mall. If so, will it remain one?

A friend sent me an article sounding the alarm that 6,000 big retail stores in the US would be closed in the coming months. He wondered why. I replied as follows:

"The amazing thing is the fact that we have so much retail space in the first place. Why has retail space per capita tripled (about) since the 1980's? Why has my town of Hingham gone from one to three supermarkets, each twice as large as the original one, resulting in 6x as much space, since then while the population has remained flat? Why does the US have over 3x as much retail space/person (46.6 sq.ft.) as Canada (13.0)? (And now we have the Interest and the the goods go directly from the warehouse to the doorstep.

I look forward to the day when the excess malls become corn fields.

Per Capita Retail Space Comparison

US:             46.6 square feet
India:          2.0 square feet
Mexico:      1.5 square feet
UK:            23.0 square feet
Canada:      13.0 square feet
Australia:    6.5 square feet"

If you have any thoughts on this matter, let's meet at the mall and talk about it.