Discussion last night about how Lancaster County’s economy seems to weather the economic storms better than most. There are reasons for that, but also limits.

So I was curious to see this piece linked on Atrios, about rising retail vacancies:

Strip malls, which are usually anchored by grocery or drug stores, saw average vacancies spike 0.5 percentage points to 8.2 percent, a level unseen since 1995, according to the report released on Monday.

Vacancies at regional malls rose 0.4 percentage points to 6.3 percent, the highest level since the first quarter of 2002, according to the preliminary results.

Thought of High’s “The Crossings” when I saw this. This is not, you might say, the most economically favorable environment in which to be building a large new shopping center right down the street from the established, large shopping center.

People get angry when told that Lancaster is “under-stored” - Who cares if we don’t have a Best Buy, our success as a community doesn’t rest on whether we do or we don’t! And that’s true. But nevertheless, those retail chains that aren’t here see the relative success of our local economy, the money we have to spend, and want to be here; or they have wanted to be here. Be interesting to see if that’s still the case in this economy; and if not, how that impacts the plans to make room for them in brand-new shopping malls.