Not to mention that malls didn't exist in small towns at all.

They only existed in larger cities like New Albany, Lafayette, Indianapolis, etc.

@tlm550 said:

Malls aren't what killed off Mom & Pop stores in "main street towns". They were still thriving long after shopping malls appeared. Besides, everything was usually much more expensive at the mall.

Walmart stores are what killed off those little shops, not malls.

Actually it was Mom and Pop who killed those stores. They burned them down to collect the insurance money, before Walmart could drive them out of business.

I, partly, agree - it was the big stores where they sold almost everything you could desire, to very low prices, prices the small family driven stores couldn't comped with, but the malls didn't exactly help either - they took the rest of the business out of the small shops...