It's one thing when hot-shot dot.coms with no hope and no cash go under, but the real estate news in the past few days has included names which are decidedly more familiar.

• Montgomery Ward, a retailing fixture since 1872, is closing its doors. That means 258 stores and ten massive distribution centers in 30 states are being shuttered -- and also that 28,000 workers will ultimately lose their jobs.

• Sears, another old-line retailer, is closing four of its department stores (it has more than 850 big stores) as well as 83 specialty outlets. The closings will mean the loss of 2,400 jobs.

• Bradlees, with 105 stores and three distribution centers, is closing. The company will lay-off 9,800 employees.

• Office Depot will close 70 stores (more than 800 will remain), a move that will result in nearly 1,600 lay-offs.

In the context of a country with 283 million people, the closings and job losses cited here are not statistically significant. But in human terms, and as an index of retail activity, the closing of these stores and others should be a matter of concern.

To start, the job loss numbers are grossly understated. It may well be that only "x" number of people are being laid off directly, but many more people will be impacted because there is less to warehouse, less to manufacture, less to finance, and less to transport.

Also, a large number of shopping centers and retail locations are now going to have some very big vacancies, which means that commercial rental rates may decline generally. And if you wanted to sell a large retail outlet this Spring, you might want to reconsider your plans.

Despite the bad news on the retail front, there's no need to panic. The reality is that each year new competitors enter the marketplace and established ones leave. It's part of the natural ebb and flow that are part of every business cycle.

Just for fun, look what happened when a long-ago "new media" hit the marketplace.

In the 1870s the U.S. emerged from the Civil War as a manufacturing giant with a few major cities and huge numbers of small towns. Those towns were largely served by local merchants. Facing little competition, local stores could charge high prices for their goods -- a not totally-unfair situation since maintaining a store and obtaining inventory were hardly easy.

But then a new media began to emerge. In 1863 the Postal Service introduced free city delivery and uniform postal rates -- a key idea because it meant that mailers everywhere had the same shipping costs. By 1896 rural free delivery began.

By 1897 -- just a year later -- a hot-shot start-up company in Chicago was flooding the country with catalogs. This media was new and different, but people liked it: During the McKinley presidency, the company was selling four suits and a watch every minute, a buggy every ten minutes, and a revolver every two minutes, according to the Postal Service. The company? Sears, Roebuck.

And what happened to prices at rural country stores because of this new media? They fell. What happened to rural stores? Many closed, but smart owners got with the times, saw that new media would not disappear, and became more competitive.

We live in a period of retailing change. We've recently seen the creation of new Web merchants -- and we've also seen many of them fall, despite preferential tax treatment, easy money from Wall Street, and cloying media coverage.

But just like rural stores at the turn of the last century, traditional retailers have started to fight back. The leading names in malls and shopping centers have begun to emerge as online powers because they can both sell on the Web and also from local stores. No less important, those local stores represent an easy way for Internet consumers to return unwanted merchandise.

We don't yet know how much retailing space is required if the economy slows, but in 2001 we're likely to find a surplus of space and a shortage of major retail tenants. That will mean pressures on owners to reduce rents and increase concessions -- at least until the marketplace shifts again.