Mature Life Features

. . . slipping away.

Department stores and shoe stores and ladies-wear shops are giving away to online shopping and buying. When you do head for a shopping trip, it’s to a nearby suburban mall, with its own department stores and shoe stores and ladies-wear-shops and restaurants and saloons and beauty salons.

Banks, churches and post offices no longer anchor what used to be downtown. Employees of those downtown high-rise office buildings now work at home and the corporate HQ staff has moved to smaller, cheaper and more-comfortable quarters in some smaller town favored by the CEO. What used to be downtown is becoming a “Heritage District” to make use of those big empty buildings.