I don’t hate shopping malls. I know many people of the lefty-green persuasion, which is sort of where I see myself, think they are horrible abominations of urban development, a symptom of the shallowness of our culture, and killers of community spirit.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in about as typical American town as there is, and I don’t remember any candy store with a kindly old man who knew all the kids by name. I suspect that that whole thing is either a myth, or maybe something that existed in the 1890s, and I just can’t work up a good sense of nostalgia for it.
As to the horrible abomination of urban development, there may be half a point there. Most malls are pretty unimaginative architecturally, at least on the outside, and they have huge parking lots, but that’s not their fault. Blame the automobile culture.
It’s the shallowness issue that I’d like to address. It’s true. In any mall you visit (I live in Europe, but we are becoming more and more like the U.S. all the time) you will see overpriced clothing store after overpriced clothing store, gift shops selling crap that could not possibly appeal to a person whose I.Q. is measured in double digits, food courts which specialize in McDonalds and KFC rather than exotic cuisine. That’s because each of the shops in the mall is a business, and the purpose of a business is to make money and to do that you have to be selling something that people want to buy. Blame the customers, not the mall.
I like malls because they are convenient, you have an entire downtown shopping area under one roof. No traffic. No rain. In 1888, Edward Bellamy wrote a novel called “Looking Backward.” He took a stab at predicting what life would be like in the year 2000. I remember one bit where the guy from the future was looking at a 19th century painting of umbrellas and he thought it was supposed to be social satire. Everyone carrying their own awkward protection with them instead of just putting up a roof.
I think Edward Bellamy predicted the modern shopping mall.
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