USA's Destiny? Regulating Space and Creating Community in American Shopping Malls

Abstract

In North American cities, shopping malls are heralded as the new town square. Historically, the town square was a place where diverse people came together and where politics, economics and sociability were intermingled. However, shopping centres, which are separated from the old downtown by distance or design, seem for many people to be the new heart of public and social life. It is argued in this article that the regulation of the spaces of the mall is intended to create 'community' rather than a 'public'. In the process of creating community, the political potential of public space and the quality of publicity created are contorted so as to muffle political opposition and critique in the name of civility. This argument is illustrated through an examination of the Carousel Center Mall in Syracuse, New York.

Retail development in Turkey: An account after two decades of shopping malls in the urban scene

“…Guy (2007) also points out that such exclusion can be controlled by enhancing local shopping and public transportation policies and recommends preserving local shopping in traditional urban districts, improving poor-quality retail facilities and supporting surviving businesses through urban policies. Staeheli and Mitchell (2006) show that mall owners do not consider their shopping spaces as gathering places or new kinds of downtowns, and do not allow for the gamut of user rights that a truly public setting offers.…”

Transposing the Urban to the Mall

“…Similarly, authors who emphasize malls' control over populations and behaviors argue that shopping center authorities have eliminated customers' resistance (Lofland 1998;Staeheli and Mitchell 2006). Yet mall authorities face a fundamental problem because the populations that spend the least money and the most time there-the elderly and teens-form strong community bonds in the mall.…”

“…Because malls are commonly located in suburbs, low-income urban minority residents without cars have difficulty accessing them. Malls rely primarily on white, middle-class customers (Cohen 1996;Lofland 1998;Staeheli and Mitchell 2006). However, mall developers in developing world cities have fewer opportunities to isolate shopping centers from the poor than do their U.S. counterparts.…”

“…Mall authorities exclude or harass racial minorities, the poor, or teenagers through surveillance and control. Managers use security guards and cameras to screen customers and discourage theft (Lofland 1998;Staeheli and Mitchell 2006).…”

‘Born to shop’: malls, dream-worlds and capitalism

“…In fact, most forms of social engineering require the creation and manipulation of a dream-world, generally through the implementation of specific physical, architectural and visual structures to support it. In this sense, malls are not only the new town squares (Staeheli and Mitchell 2006) but also the new Houses of the People. 3 They have very effectively replaced the communist dream-world of an equal community with the capitalist dream-world of a wealthy and individually glamorous community.…”