An article in Business Week asks an interesting question: would Macy's feel the pain if J.C. Penney were to disappear from the retail landscape? According to the author, since Macy's and J.C. Penney are neighbors in a lot of regional malls, if one goes away the other might feel the impact from lower shopper traffic.
"If J.C. Penney doesn’t survive, there aren’t many others with the heft and range of goods to occupy thousands of square feet in its place," the article states.
Of course, given today's state of affairs, it's more likely that Macy's is helping drive additional traffic for J.C. Penney than the other way around. Does anyone have strong feelings about this? Is it really true there aren't good alternatives to J.C. Penney as a mall co-anchor?