One of the world's shopping capitals is quickly becoming a retail ghost town. Up and down numerous streets in once thriving areas of New York City, you'll find shuttered store after shuttered store. E-commerce is partially to blame but landlords have also been accused of greed. Karina Huber has more.

In the early 2000s the hit show "Sex and the City" put the Magnolia Bakery on New York's Bleecker Street on the map. The street quickly became a magnet for tourists and high-end retailers like Marc Jacobs. Almost two decades later, it's now a retail ghost town covered with signs looking for tenants. Other hot shopping areas in New York are also barren-some with vacancy rates hovering at 20 percent. Banks and drug store chains seem to be the only survivors.

FAITH HOPE CONSOLO, CHAIRMAN RETAIL LEASING "It's really the biggest shakeup in the retail market that we've seen in two decades."

Consolo says e-commerce is partially to blame, but she says the bigger problem is high rents. They hit a peak two years ago on the city's exclusive East Side above 50th Street.

FAITH HOPE CONSOLO, CHAIRMAN RETAIL LEASING "We were up to five thousand dollars a square foot on Fifth Avenue in the 50s where traditionally you could do 2500 to 3000."

Consolo is advising landlords to adjust their rents. She says in some neighborhoods commercial leases are down 30 to 40 percent. But there are still a few holdouts waiting for deep-pocketed tenants. Worried about blight, the city is floating the idea of fining those landlords that hold out for too long. Real estate experts say it's a buyer's market but warn that to be successful retailers have to offer more to consumers than ever before.

PATRICE DERRINGTON, REAL ESTATE PROFESSOR COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY "They don't want a boring, anonymous in-store experience anymore. What they're looking for is a really engaging, entertaining in-store experience."

Derrington is confident retailers will figure out a new brick and mortar strategy and return to New York now that rents are lower. But there's another challenge looming on the horizon.

KARINA HUBER NEW YORK The city will soon be getting more than 110 thousand square meters of new retail space thanks to three mega-developments currently underway, including Hudson Yards just behind me. If the current market can't entice retailers to sign leases now, just imagine how bad it will get with all this extra supply. Karina Huber, CGTN, New York.