Column: How will we fare after the mall has gone?

This holiday season I am reminded that what was once old can sometimes become new again — must I really go back to wearing high-waisted pants? — and what was once new can eventually become imbued with a nostalgic patina.

There was a time — not that long ago, if you think about it — when our society lamented the downfall of Main Street USA, with its mom-and-pop shops, soda fountains and folksy hardware stores, often situated near that other symbol of iconic Americana, the town square.

The villain in those days was the big new shopping mall, which was viewed as a scourge on small, independent businesses and a sign that evil developers would stop at nothing to create a cultural wasteland of chain stores and unfettered consumerism.

Oh, but that was then. Today we are faced with a new reality.

For it’s entirely possible that 2017 will be remembered as the year the American shopping mall was officially put on a death watch.

And most of us will probably mourn its passing. Somewhere along the way, without even realizing we were doing it, we transferred the sentimental attachment previously reserved for those Main Street proprietors to our malls. We gave in and started to love them, with their Cinnabons, Forever 21s, anchor department stores, and kitschy Santa’s workshops.

But now they too are disappearing, and it’s only natural to feel a sense of loss.

Stories about struggling or shuttered malls abound in media outlets nationwide, often accompanied by sad photos of barren aisles, darkened storefronts, fountains run dry, and forlorn potted plants in need of tending.

Thousands of stores across the country have closed just this year, and hundreds of thousands of retail jobs have disappeared over the past 15 years. A recent Time magazine article noted that one-quarter or more of American malls are likely to be shuttered permanently within the next few years. Retail chain bankruptcies are so commonplace they rarely register more than passing notice anymore.

We’ve known for some time that this is no ordinary downturn, the kind of cyclical funk the retailing world has in the past approached with a reflexive hopefulness for a quick turnaround. What we’re seeing now is a cataclysmic blow to a mainstay of American industry brought on largely by our ever-growing reliance on Internet-based commerce. There’s no way back from that.

It’s also a profound cultural shift. Malls have been far more to us than just places to buy socks. They’re where we’ve gone to meet friends, grab a coffee, people watch, hang out at the food court or see a movie. We’ve made our local mall’s Christmas tree-lighting ceremony an annual family ritual, and enjoyed everything from department store cooking demos to evening summertime strolls along bustling corridors.

Now, as we stay home and order our gifts online, we wonder how this change will impact our sense of community.

Are we losing a crucial means of connecting with others because we no longer pop out to the mall to browse for books, toys, sweaters, candles and candy? Is this another glaring sign that face-to-face social interaction is in jeopardy because of technology?

Amid all this retailing devastation, there are some notable exceptions, and one need look no further than right here in coastal Orange County to find them. Upscale malls in affluent areas continue to burn brightly in an otherwise dimming universe, a testament to the allure of luxury among a clientele far removed from the factory closings and blighted local economies of the heartland.

So we observe that South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach’s Fashion Island, and Pacific City in Huntington Beach are among those malls that appear to be bucking the trend.

Still, even such relatively prosperous malls must crank up their marketing and promotional efforts to full throttle to keep business humming in this ever-tougher brick-and-mortar retailing world. Pulling out the stops to increase foot traffic is just business as usual these days.

Celebrity appearances, free concerts, trucked-in snow, old-style trolleys, craft breweries, and even zip lines are among those entertainment options mall operators are expected to offer to lure customers. The hope is that once those customers are there, they might also make impulse purchases of cologne or Italian loafers.

But creativity will only go so far, and this holiday season there’s a sense of desperation setting in at many malls. The scent of imminent death could very well hasten the end as shoppers avoid depressing signs of decay. More store closings are coming, and for some malls this Christmas could be their last.

Sure, there are many other troubling issues to worry about this holiday season. Even so, it’s worth considering what the decline of the mall means for our society, and whether we’ll see some of that famous American ingenuity turn to figuring out the next iteration of Main Street USA.

After all, not even a giant Amazon facility can replace all the jobs lost in the retail sector. And your kids can’t sit on Santa’s lap in cyberspace.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.