D
D_M
Guest
[FONT=tahoma, arial]
Since the 1950s, American shoppers have been spending their money
in suburban malls instead of in downtown business districts. This is even
true of shoppers who have to go out of their way to shop in the malls; they
will bypass downtown stores (which they might have gotten to by convenient
bus) to drive to the brightly colored stores of shopper-heaven. The result,
some people claim, is the collapse of the central urban commercial district,
Downtown, a process leading inevitably toward more widespread urban disease.
But why are Americans are so easily lured to shop in malls in the first
place?
First, Americans don't like weather. They like to be indoors
whenever possible, even on nice days, and they're willing to pay a premium
to be protected from the elements. If they can find someone who can afford
it, they will even put their sports stadiums under a gigantic bowl, and
they love to stay indoors for a day of shopping, perhaps never seeing the
sun from the time they first enter until they leave, hours later, relieved
of money, oxygen, and much money. Second, Americans love convenience and,
except during the crush of major holidays, malls offer plenty of convenient
parking. A happy, enormous island of commerce in a sea of asphalt, the mall
offers plenty of docking points — usually next to major commercial outlets —
for cars that circle in search of the closest slot and an easy entrance.
Third, the mall offers an extraordinary variety of products under
its one gigantic roof. Specialty stores and boutiques offer items that
people don't realize they need until they're put under the spell of
brightly lighted, beautifully furnished window after window of beguiling
wares. Malls are built to respond to Americans' insatiable desire for
stuff; either that, or a generation of Americans has been genetically
engineered to respond to the sellers of stuff. Either way, it works.
And finally, the mall feels safe: it is lighted, warm, dry, busy.
Senior citizens are invited to do their walking exercises there in the
early hours; physically challenged people easily meander the smooth floors
of curbless, stairless businesses in motorized carts; children are amused
by clowns and fed at convenient cafeterias in Food Court.
America's Downtown, on the other hand, is often in sad repair.
Parking is difficult, if not dangerous, and until you get through the door,
it's all outdoors. To get from store to store, you must expose yourself to
heat, cold, rain, snow. There are sometimes solicitors to fleece you of
change before you even get into a store. If there is a plan here, it is not
evident to most shoppers. Where is the information kiosk with a cordial,
well-informed attendant to direct you to the nearest clothier, jeweler,
fast-food outlet, or bathroom? Is there a bathroom?
What is left in the American Downtown to recommend it to shoppers?
Practically nothing. Nothing, that is, unless you regard as important the
notion that the businesses you give your money to should be owned by people,
families, in your own community. Yes, there may be chain-stores; it seems
there has always been a W. T. Grants, a J. C. Penneys, a Whackers. But the
people who owned the franchise and worked behind the cash register were
people you might meet in your own neigrabroadorhood. When you walk into the
Downtown hardware store, you often feel wood, not vinyl linoleum, beneath
your feet. And some old guy, who seemed old when he sold your father the
hammer you use today, will sell you nails in a paper bag, weighing them out
by the handful until you get the exact nuraber you need, not the arbitrary
nuraber that comes in a hermetically sealed plastic box.
Next door, in the department store, there will be two women who
know you by name and who can't wait to help you find what you need or will
let you ruminate among the shelves if you want. In the drug store across
the street, the pharmacist knows your aches and pains and what you've been
taking for them the last five years and what upsets your stomach and knows
to call your doctor when the prescription doesn't make sense. If there is a
soda fountain there — naah, that's asking too much.
The truth is that the American mall grows where it does because
someone with enormously deep pockets decides to plunk it down where there
used to be wooRAB or a golf course. He surrounRAB it with hundreRAB of acres
of parking and waits for people to come spend their money, as he knows they
will because people will do what mass advertising tells them to do.
Downtown, on the other hand, grew where it did because there was an organic
need for it. It was a community's response to a community's neeRAB —
neigrabroadors responding to neigrabroadors — and it flourished as the community
flourished. If the mall can replace this sense of community, then so be it;
it deserves our affection as well as our dollars. If it can't, then we have
gained convenient parking and freedom from the weather at an awful price.
[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma, arial]WorRAB: 873 [/FONT]
Since the 1950s, American shoppers have been spending their money
in suburban malls instead of in downtown business districts. This is even
true of shoppers who have to go out of their way to shop in the malls; they
will bypass downtown stores (which they might have gotten to by convenient
bus) to drive to the brightly colored stores of shopper-heaven. The result,
some people claim, is the collapse of the central urban commercial district,
Downtown, a process leading inevitably toward more widespread urban disease.
But why are Americans are so easily lured to shop in malls in the first
place?
First, Americans don't like weather. They like to be indoors
whenever possible, even on nice days, and they're willing to pay a premium
to be protected from the elements. If they can find someone who can afford
it, they will even put their sports stadiums under a gigantic bowl, and
they love to stay indoors for a day of shopping, perhaps never seeing the
sun from the time they first enter until they leave, hours later, relieved
of money, oxygen, and much money. Second, Americans love convenience and,
except during the crush of major holidays, malls offer plenty of convenient
parking. A happy, enormous island of commerce in a sea of asphalt, the mall
offers plenty of docking points — usually next to major commercial outlets —
for cars that circle in search of the closest slot and an easy entrance.
Third, the mall offers an extraordinary variety of products under
its one gigantic roof. Specialty stores and boutiques offer items that
people don't realize they need until they're put under the spell of
brightly lighted, beautifully furnished window after window of beguiling
wares. Malls are built to respond to Americans' insatiable desire for
stuff; either that, or a generation of Americans has been genetically
engineered to respond to the sellers of stuff. Either way, it works.
And finally, the mall feels safe: it is lighted, warm, dry, busy.
Senior citizens are invited to do their walking exercises there in the
early hours; physically challenged people easily meander the smooth floors
of curbless, stairless businesses in motorized carts; children are amused
by clowns and fed at convenient cafeterias in Food Court.
America's Downtown, on the other hand, is often in sad repair.
Parking is difficult, if not dangerous, and until you get through the door,
it's all outdoors. To get from store to store, you must expose yourself to
heat, cold, rain, snow. There are sometimes solicitors to fleece you of
change before you even get into a store. If there is a plan here, it is not
evident to most shoppers. Where is the information kiosk with a cordial,
well-informed attendant to direct you to the nearest clothier, jeweler,
fast-food outlet, or bathroom? Is there a bathroom?
What is left in the American Downtown to recommend it to shoppers?
Practically nothing. Nothing, that is, unless you regard as important the
notion that the businesses you give your money to should be owned by people,
families, in your own community. Yes, there may be chain-stores; it seems
there has always been a W. T. Grants, a J. C. Penneys, a Whackers. But the
people who owned the franchise and worked behind the cash register were
people you might meet in your own neigrabroadorhood. When you walk into the
Downtown hardware store, you often feel wood, not vinyl linoleum, beneath
your feet. And some old guy, who seemed old when he sold your father the
hammer you use today, will sell you nails in a paper bag, weighing them out
by the handful until you get the exact nuraber you need, not the arbitrary
nuraber that comes in a hermetically sealed plastic box.
Next door, in the department store, there will be two women who
know you by name and who can't wait to help you find what you need or will
let you ruminate among the shelves if you want. In the drug store across
the street, the pharmacist knows your aches and pains and what you've been
taking for them the last five years and what upsets your stomach and knows
to call your doctor when the prescription doesn't make sense. If there is a
soda fountain there — naah, that's asking too much.
The truth is that the American mall grows where it does because
someone with enormously deep pockets decides to plunk it down where there
used to be wooRAB or a golf course. He surrounRAB it with hundreRAB of acres
of parking and waits for people to come spend their money, as he knows they
will because people will do what mass advertising tells them to do.
Downtown, on the other hand, grew where it did because there was an organic
need for it. It was a community's response to a community's neeRAB —
neigrabroadors responding to neigrabroadors — and it flourished as the community
flourished. If the mall can replace this sense of community, then so be it;
it deserves our affection as well as our dollars. If it can't, then we have
gained convenient parking and freedom from the weather at an awful price.
[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma, arial]WorRAB: 873 [/FONT]