I think you may be being mislead by the sheer _amount_ of retail in the US. The US has 10 times the retail square footage of Germany, say. Even with the recent decline in retail. The US would have to close literally thousands of malls before it comes anywhere close to the density of most European countries. Shopping malls are actually far more popular in the US than Europe; just not the _ten times_ more popular that would be required to justify the amount of space given over to them.

> America has a low-level crime/safety problem that most Asian/European countries do not.

I do wonder how much of this is more _anxiety_ than an actual safety problem. American cities are, in general, somewhat more dangerous than European cities, violent-crime-wise, but for most it's not separate worlds.