Tweet
Our Love Affair With Malls Is on the Rocks
By DAVID SEGAL
Americans have long been married to the shopping mall, like the Mall of America in Minnesota, above, but it is now the bad partner we can’t, and mustn’t, leave.
DEARLY beloved.
We are gathered here today, in the midst of economic calamity, to ask if we really should be gathered here today, in a funhouse of merchandise designed to send us deeper into debt.
Specifically, we are gathered in the Chapel of Love, sandwiched between a LensCrafters and a Bloomingdale’s and tucked into a relatively quiet corner of the vast prairie of retail and amusements that is the Mall of America.
It’s a convenient starting point for rethinking the 50-year marriage between the American shopper and the American mall. Because we’ve been married to the mall for so long that some of us are now getting married in the mall — 5,000 couples in this chapel since it opened 10 years ago.
And one recent Sunday afternoon, Brianna and Jesse Bergmann are standing here under a white wedding arch, beside an ordained minister, having promised to cherish each other in sickness and in health. There was a homily about forgiveness, an exchange of vows and finally a kiss and some applause.
Before everyone heads past the Foot Locker and down the escalator to the Rainforest Cafe, the bride — a cherubic 19-year-old — leans against a wall in her billowy white dress and explains why she chose this spot for her big day.
“I love shopping,” she says, giggling. “Mostly clothing. I love Macy’s, Aero’s, American Eagle, Maurice’s.”
“I come with her when she shops,” says her husband, a 21-year-old who loads pallets in a food warehouse, “so she doesn’t spend too much.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/bu...01mall.html?hp
Guys like Kunstler love to bash America's Malls and the people that shop there. Are they inherently evil? Are they doomed because of the 2nd Great Depression...and/or peak oil? Has the pathetic joyful hope of building a mall, along with building a prison,as the answer to the flight of industry overseas come to an end?
By DAVID SEGAL
Americans have long been married to the shopping mall, like the Mall of America in Minnesota, above, but it is now the bad partner we can’t, and mustn’t, leave.
DEARLY beloved.
We are gathered here today, in the midst of economic calamity, to ask if we really should be gathered here today, in a funhouse of merchandise designed to send us deeper into debt.
Specifically, we are gathered in the Chapel of Love, sandwiched between a LensCrafters and a Bloomingdale’s and tucked into a relatively quiet corner of the vast prairie of retail and amusements that is the Mall of America.
It’s a convenient starting point for rethinking the 50-year marriage between the American shopper and the American mall. Because we’ve been married to the mall for so long that some of us are now getting married in the mall — 5,000 couples in this chapel since it opened 10 years ago.
And one recent Sunday afternoon, Brianna and Jesse Bergmann are standing here under a white wedding arch, beside an ordained minister, having promised to cherish each other in sickness and in health. There was a homily about forgiveness, an exchange of vows and finally a kiss and some applause.
Before everyone heads past the Foot Locker and down the escalator to the Rainforest Cafe, the bride — a cherubic 19-year-old — leans against a wall in her billowy white dress and explains why she chose this spot for her big day.
“I love shopping,” she says, giggling. “Mostly clothing. I love Macy’s, Aero’s, American Eagle, Maurice’s.”
“I come with her when she shops,” says her husband, a 21-year-old who loads pallets in a food warehouse, “so she doesn’t spend too much.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/bu...01mall.html?hp
Guys like Kunstler love to bash America's Malls and the people that shop there. Are they inherently evil? Are they doomed because of the 2nd Great Depression...and/or peak oil? Has the pathetic joyful hope of building a mall, along with building a prison,as the answer to the flight of industry overseas come to an end?