I’ve been ruminating about…shopping malls

Every city has a least one. World class cities have dozens. If you have a car they’re easy to get to. In fact, chances are the town planners in your city are predicting future traffic flows, roads, and even population growth based on where the malls are and will be. No wonder Auckland’s planners have been tearing their hair out for months over the newly opened Sylvia Park mega centre.

I’m intrigued by shopping malls. Not enough to spend significant time in any of them, but sufficiently fascinated to do some reflecting on how they run and why so much of our population goes there so often.

Over the years, I’ve twice gone specifically to a mall just to observe, listen and reflect on how malls are designed and operated. I learnt some interesting things as a result.

But for me the ultimate mall experience was spending a few hours in what was for many years the world’s largest mall – West Edmonton – the original supersize or ‘mother-of-all’ version of ‘mall’. When we lived in Vancouver I heard of many North American families who actually took their vacations (read ‘holidays’) in Edmonton – specifically for all the features the mall was able to offer to the whole family! Can you imagine that? Two whole weeks in a gigantic shopping mall. What a great way to see the country. (It’s even more zany than going to DisneyWorld in Orlando to visit all the theme parks.)

I must admit that when my friends Mark and Ken did take me to West Edmonton it was kind of exciting – in a weird, middle-class, I’m-from-lil’ol-Noo-Zealand sort of way. For a start, it was in the middle of a genuine Canadian winter – which is probably good enough reason to hibernate permanently in such a structure.

Life in a shopping mall is all about having choices. Lots of them. Mark and Ken had several to make even before we entered the mega-edifice. Which carpark should we drive into? North, east, south or west? Then which of the several entrances leading from our carpark should we take, and at what level?

Once ‘in’, I soon discovered that West Edmonton’s definitely one of those places you need a map. You could get seriously lost in there – even someone with my excellent sense of direction. This is a serial shopper’s paradise. Mind you, West Edmonton’s not all about experiencing the thrill of the killer purchase. Among other things it has an enormous waterpark – complete with submarines, and a theme park with a rollercoaster Rainbow’s End would be proud of. It has most other things as well – including a hotel, should you decide to stay the night.

But I’ve digressed, already. It’s not my intention to do a Texas on you and tell you just how damn big this monstrosity is. I’m sure you’re bored with that game. And chances are many of you have also been blown away by the size of some of them suckers.

So let me get right to the point…malls intrigue me. Here’s six questions I’ve asked myself about them…

1. What’s with those names?!
Centre City, Shopping World, Botany Downs Town Centre, Oakridge Centre, The Richmond Centre – here’s a few of the malls I’ve spent time in over the years, or heard about. Notice anything about the names? They all use words like ‘centre’ or ‘world’.

Okay, it’s only a small thing and I may be making too many assumptions! (And I know there’s lots of exceptions too.) But I can’t help thinking that the choice of name is quite deliberate – and significant. In many cases it seems to seed the idea or hope that this is the place that will become the centre of people’s lives and aspirations (kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy!). All other public spaces will draw their bearings (and significance?) from the mall.

2. Why’s it so easy to get into a mall but not so easy to get out?
Am I imagining things or is the signage and visibility of entrances to malls much bigger than those of the internal exits? It’s generally easy to find a way into a mall, but once inside, finding a way out is not so simple.

Granted some are better than others. But the very best malls (from a retailer’s perspective) are those that are arranged in rectangular boulevards – where the flow of foot traffic is encouraged to keep just going round and round. With no obvious end point it is easy to just keep moving in a circular fashion. In such malls, people have to consciously and deliberately pull out of the flow and look for the “off ramps” to the carpark or outside street.

The implication of such design issues is obvious – the intention is to get people to spend as much time in the mall as possible. I guess the assumption is that the longer we stay in the mall the more money we’re likely to spend?

3. Where are the clocks?
Ever been without a watch or time piece in a shopping mall? What do you do when you need to know what time it is? If you’re looking for clocks to help you, you’ll probably be out of luck – that’s unless you head for the nearest jewellery store. Chances are that you’ll be lucky to find any clock in your mall (there are a few exceptions).

This is ironic. In a culture obsessed by time, why is it that there are so few reminders of the minutes and hours in malls? Again, this gives me the impression that the mall owners intend people to ‘get caught up’ in the business of being in the mall.

However, it may also relate to the sense that this is a place to chill out. Many people go there for the experience and are not concerned too much with time. Typical of this attitude may be the short conversation I overhead once between a child and her mother – “What are we doing Mum?” to which the Mum replied, “Oh well, we’re just wasting a bit of time”! Browsing is a feature of the way many people behave within the retail stores – most have a very unhurried look (apart from the week before Christmas!).

As I say, I find this attitude to time somewhat ironic. In such a time-driven culture where busyness and rush are endemic, imagine the shopping mall being a haven from the tyranny of the clock? Given its central place in our consumerist and high tech society, one might think that the mall would be the last place to be clock-free.

4. If land is so expensive in the city, why is the majority of mall space not utilised for the actual shops?
Go to any mall and you find that the square meterage is dominated by the carparks. This is hardly surprising in one sense. Malls are the invention of the modern, car-dependent city. In large cities most malls have been built outside the city centre – generally in the suburbs or on rural land that is viewed as likely for the growth of new satellite cities or suburbs.

The mall is built for the private car. They fit together like hand and glove. A marriage made in heaven?

But carparks aren’t the only thing dominating the use of space in malls. Ever noticed that most shopping malls have a roomy, airy feeling? They feature wide ‘boulevard-type’ thoroughfares that are built with more than just the utilitarian flow of foot traffic in mind. Frequently these avenues are filled with natural light – through the use of glass atriums, water features (a very soothing sound, that H2O), trees and shrubs, and lots of seating. It’s like the outdoors brought indoors (albeit in a somewhat synthetic and artificial form).

This is the equivalent of the old ‘public square’. It seems to be the centre of the action. Here is where people sit around café tables eating and drinking, or gathering to chat in small groups. It’s also where a daily show for kids might be performed (during the holidays) or a demonstration of a new product occur. At busy times of the day and night (lunch hour, after school, late night shopping etc) it’s not uncommon to see many more people in these public spaces than in the actual shops.

All this suggests that the planners and owners of shopping malls are no fools. They’re not taken in by the simplistic notion that people only attend malls in order to buy stuff.

It’s the whole experience they are looking for. Social interaction, a sense of community, entertainment. Malls are cool places to just linger, to hang out.

In the midst of this, there is serious money to be made – at least for the owners of the mall. (See my afterthought)

5. Why do people spend so much time in malls?
Which brings me to another intriguing question – perhaps, in fact, the crux of the subject. Just what is the great appeal of the shopping mall? Why do we flock to them in ever-increasing numbers? Why are more and bigger of the monstrosities being built?

Here’s four reasons that I think play a part. ‘C’ what you think.

Centre of consumer culture
It’s easy to assume that the consumption of goods and services is the main reason we head to the mall. These large edifices act as the main temples of our consumer culture – a prime place of worship. They’re at the heart and centre of how we define ourselves as a society.

But our habitual behaviour in attending malls is unlikely to be a result of one simple, black and white issue/reason. My suspicion is that while the urge to consume is the central cause of the resounding success of the mall, it’s by no means the only one. Otherwise, people might very well have spurned the mall in favour of the traditional main street, ‘big box’ retail centres, or internet and phone shopping options that abound. (All of these are also quite substantial and growing industries in their own right.)

So what does the mall potentially offer, in addition to consumer-heaven, that the other alternatives struggle to provide in equal measure? I’ve already alluded to two key elements.

Comfort and Convenience
Shopping malls are definitely built for convenience, and comfort. For a start, there’s something very attractive about driving into a covered carpark, and walking into a warm (or cool, depending on the season) dry, light and (if you live in New Zealand) windless space.

The modern shopping mall is clean, dry, aesthetically appealing, and relatively safe. (Some might argue that sterile and fake might be better descriptions!)

It’s also incredibly convenient because of the all-in-one services it offers. Not only can you do your grocery shopping, banking, buy an appliance, pick up a prescription, get a haircut or try on some shoes; you can also go to the movies, have a meal, post some mail, and maybe even see a doctor, dentist or optometrist. No need to move the car, or even hassle with meter money.

Us moderns (and post-moderns!) love convenience. The shopping mall offers it in truckloads.

Community
For most people, the mall experience is a social one. Even if they arrive or leave by themselves, the vast majority connect with friends or acquaintances when they are there. Whether it be the place for young people to hang out with mates, or the retired person to have a coffee with a friend, the mall provides a public space to relate.

Particularly for those who see shopping as a recreational pursuit, doing it with family or friends is part of the attraction.

Perhaps the mall also provides sometimes, an element of “collective community energy” (yeah, I know it’s a stupid term I just made up, but I hope you understand what I mean – kind of like what you feel in a sports stadium, or at a concert – an “I’m part of something bigger than me” experience).

So it seems to me that the shopping mall fulfils an important place of meeting, ‘hanging out together’ and social interaction (though most of the interactions probably aren’t particularly intimate or deep).

Sadly, for some people, this is the closest thing to community they experience.

Carroll’s speculation
A number of years ago, Australian sociologist John Carroll wrote that people actually go to the shopping mall for a quasi-religious experience.

Carroll suggests that while shopping malls are built for convenience, their huge success has nothing to do with this. (On this I respectfully disagree.) People are looking for an escapist experience (releasing them temporarily from the humdrum of their lives), something that will ‘consume’ them – taking them into something larger and richer than themselves.

It is not just the purchase that Carroll suggests helps fuel this hope. It’s the whole mall experience. In short, people are looking to the shopping mall to provide meaning.

Of course, Carroll is well aware that all the mall offers can scarcely hope to fulfil these desires to any great extent – not the purchase, nor the sense of community, nor the interaction with others, let alone the entertainment. Nevertheless, he maintains, this is what drives many people to return again and again to such places, and to make the mall such an important part of their lives.

Whether or not he’s right, Carroll raises an interesting point – one worth thinking about.

6. Are there any possibilities for mission at the mall?
The mall, then, is built for more than just trade. It’s a social experience – a place of substantial, though not particularly deep, interaction. And, given the central place consumerism plays in our culture, it could be argued that the shopping mall is at the heart and centre of what our culture lives and longs for.

How should we then treat the mall regarding mission? Is it so tied to the cultural gods that we are best to avoid it completely? Or do we embrace it as the modern equivalent of the marketplace and seek to actively engage people?

Both extremes are too simplistic. The shopping mall may well offer an opportunity for mission. As an important meeting place in our culture it has the huge advantage of being relatively time-free. As a place to meet and mix with a wide spectrum of the unchurched in our society, it offers much.

The structure of the mall may even present opportunities to do more than just relate casually. Given the openness of many malls to community groups and casual operators, it might have potential to do some creative street theatre or offer some kind of service to people?

However, we shouldn’t be naïve. Following Jesus brings a tension for us, between the need to purchase products (a natural part of living) and the challenge to be freed from the subversive lure of materialism. Our capacity to utilise the public space of the mall as a venue for mission is somewhat dependent on us recognising that our witness is directly connected to our own battle against idolatry.

And the tendency to communicate that Jesus is just another product or brand available for purchase is also something we need to be very wary of.

If Carroll is correct, people are longing for much more than just the products they buy when they go to the mall. The question is, is this an appropriate environment to tap into those deeper longings, or are we better to raise those possibilities in other contexts?

AFTERTHOUGHT: How do retailers make any money in malls?
I was talking to a friend a while back who told me that he and his brother had investigated establishing a café in the redeveloped mall in our city. When I asked him why they’d not gone ahead with it, he stated that the numbers simply didn’t stack up. He proceeded to explain that renting a relatively small space by one of the entrances to the mall was going to cost them four to five times that of the average wage, plus a percentage of their profit, along with the expectation that every major mall promotion would require a contribution. (He also noted that they were negotiating on some of the cheapest space in the mall – evidently the closer to the centre of the mall you get, the more expensive the rent!) Remember, this cost does not include the shop fit-out, let alone the other significant overheads involved in running a business. There was no way, according to my friend, that they would turn a profit.

This bullish attitude of the mall owners was confirmed by another friend, assistant manager of a retail shop in the same mall. She explained that within months the outfit she worked for was exiting (no doubt at considerable cost). One of the reasons my friend stated was not just the rent, but the fact that shop opening hours (among other things) were completely at the mercy of the mall owners. No sooner had the redeveloped mall been opened than the hours of trading were extended. End of story.

Shopping malls are increasingly owned by foreign companies who have little interest or commitment to the local community. They set the rules, and the rent. Heavy penalties are often part of the lease agreement. Ruthless greed, it seems, drives these big boys of the industry. Someone is definitely making a lot of money – but don’t assume it’s the retailers!

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