Are strip malls so called because the stores are laid out in a strip, or because they are usually found along busy commercial strips?
Powers &8^]
It’s because they are laid out in a strip. To qualify as a strip mall, it has to be laid out as a single row of buildings. While such rows are usually found along commercial strips, they don’t have to be.
Well, that’s a good theory, but is there any evidence behind it? Like dating back to the origin of the term?
Powers &8^]
I’ve never heard any other suggestion for its origin. Where did you get the idea that it comes from commercial strip?
Google Books traces it back to around 1980 where it suddenly appears regularly and without explanation indicating that everybody knew the word. But there’s no indication that commercial strip was ever intended.
I think it arose to distinguish ordinary shopping malls (big open places with stores) from indoor shopping malls (which aren’t really “malls”) when the indoor malls were rising in number and popularity and were stealing the “mall” name.
No no… it’s because they usually have dance clubs, ie. men’s clubs.
Shopping centers were not called malls before the indoor malls opened. Enclosed malls started in the 1950s and were everywhere decades before 1980. BTW, the term strip center precedes the term strip mall and starts to appear in the early 1950s, before the first enclosed mall was built. “Strip center” had exactly the same usage: a strip of small stores.
I’m not sure whether this is a joke or not, because I’ve seen people say it seriously. But there is not a particle of evidence for this as an origin, and 99.9% of strip malls don’t have strip clubs and never did.
I think lukeinva is kidding.
Poe’s Law, Dude. 
I’ve never heard of strip malls being called “strip centers”.
It’s not a “theory,” it’s the definition. But Exapno has provided the evidence on timing.
the godfather’s residential compound was also called a mall. houses were not aligned. my strangest mall is that found in washington d.c.
You don’t mean the National Mall, do you? Because that’s the dictionary definition of a mall.
That’s the way it’s used in The Godfather as well.
It comes originally from London:
1963 is definitely wrong, though. Google Books gives a number of hits from 1960. Because of Google’s infuriating habit of dating magazines by the first issue in their archives rather than by the actual date of the article, there may be earlier ones hidden.
Indeed, it was this definition that gave us shopping malls. Developers in the 1950s began experimenting with having rows of stores facing each other along an outdoor pedestrian walkway, usually anchored at either end by large department stores. Eventually, a couple of northern cities tried enclosing the mall area for more pleasant shopping.
Once the word mall had come to be so closely identified with shopping (around 1970), the back-formations mini-mall and strip mall appeared, even though neither one actually has a mall in the original sense.
In the real estate business, you’ll hear it at least as often as strip mall. Depending how large it is or the tenant mix, they may call it a neighborhood center.
You mean the 1850s?
I think the definition given as a set of building laid out in a strip and grouped as a unit is correct.
For instance, Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago from North Avenue to Montrose is basically one small business of stores after another. In the 50s it had Sears at one end (still there at Six Corners) and Wieboldt Dept Store at the other end (Now K-Mart near North Ave).
That was definitely a commercial strip of businesses anchored by two big stores miles apart, but no one would call Milwaukee Avenue a strip mall, because the small stores are individual units (more or less).
Arcades are unquestionably the original. They were found in most cities, both in Europe and in America.
The difference is that arcades were built inside of other buildings, connecting one street to another. The building would have existed in any case. This provided for a greater amount of street-level retail and therefore higher rents. Most were one-story and fairly utilitarian, but others were multi-story showplaces. The Cleveland Arcade is famous and has recently been renovated for modern uses.
Arcades fell out of favor as downtowns began to empty out, since they depended so heavily on high levels of foot traffic. Strips were fairly daring experiments in the 1950s. Nobody knew whether stores could attract a sufficient car traffic. Nobody knew whether placing them toward the street or perpendicular to it was better. Nobody knew whether parking should be in front or in back. Nobody knew what mix of stores would provide the proper complement to boost all sales. Nobody knew where best to site them. Nobody knew what direction the city would expand to or when. If you look at them in the older suburbs, they seem individualistic and rather haphazard, for these reasons. As the form matured people got a sense of what worked best, which is why they seem more cookie-cutter today.
Yeah, in the real estate business you hear all kinds of euphemisms.
–VT, spouse of a real estate agent