I have a sub-title of ‘A sense of belonging’ in this latest thread of posts. This is deliberate because we all need to feel that innate sense of belonging to something. In its healthy form it can create a wonderful community with healthy relationship. In its worst form it can mean attaching oneself to a cult or as a true believer in order to lose oneself in a negative mass movement. In the last post I described the advent of suburbia and especially the women found themselves longing for the connection they had experienced in their inner-city neighborhoods. Suburban planned-community housing developments like ‘Levitttown, NY’ (built 1947-1951) became the new model for new ‘outer-city’ development projects. In many cases, the mostly prefabricated houses were finished on-mass and whole neighborhoods would move in on the same day. While the men now commuted to work, the women found themselves needing to rebuild the friendships and connections they had once taken for granted. As a sidenote, many of the women of this time had experienced great freedom during WWII as they had worked at men’s jobs and served in the support services of the military – their lives had ben excting and they had been paid well. After the war they had been told to quietly go back and be domestic goddesses looking after their husbands. Capitalism, never at a loss for ways to make money, found ways for wives and mothers to not only make some money while the men were gone during the day, but to create reasons for social gatherings. Tupperware and Mary-K parties were typical of home businesses that were on the rise. This was a response to what Betty Freidman in 1963 called a new job description – ‘the housewife,’ the problem that has no name! – “I want more than my husband and my children and my home.”
As for daily necessities, the advent of strip malls to cater to isolated populations became normal. Women could now go to new stores that were lined up along highways near the developments. Yet, as the downtown areas were emptying of the ‘big’ stores for lack of middle class business, they found a need for new stores nearer the suburbs. The idea of a mall was born, where ‘big-box’ stores on the ends would anchor a string of smaller stores within the connecting wings. And the best part, it was all contained indoors and air conditioned with large parking facilities all around the mall. Only it wasn’t being sold as just a convenient place to shop for all the supplies you needed, it was something much more. Let me take a slight detour back a little. In the small towns and community neighborhoods before the war, people would often go ‘downtown’ (also called ‘uptown’ some places) on a Friday or Saturday night. This was a big socializing scene with ‘high-street’ and its stores being the center of the scene. There might be some shopping going on, but for the most part it was about meeting up with people and generally just hanging out and having a good time with people in your community on a regular basis. It was were information and gossip were shared that strengthened community bonds. The new idea of middle class disposable income was enticing to a new generation of economic business planners. When people moved to the suburbs there was no high-street. The mall was meant to be that replacement in its very surreal way and the designers understood that even as they planned how to separate people from their money through impulse shopping. The mall wasn’t, and still isn’t, just a collection of shops and stores. It’s a whole idea of connections reflecting community living without actually producing the community.
The mall isn’t a place to shop, it’s a place to be – the owners of the mall want you to feel you are in a place “where everybody knows your name” – the values of community you desire? Malls are merely a remote extension of Main Street as people once knew it. But EMACs (Enclosed Mall with Air Conditioning) or the more modern version the Lifestyle Center that looks more like a manicured village but no one lives there), emulate all that we perceive a community ought to be. The popularity of shopping Malls becomes clear when viewed as social phenomenon for people seeking a reconnection to regenerative community, interconnectedness, and escape from urban problems – connection to a bygone-era. But there the illusion and the reality separate. About 60% of the people who go to malls do not go to buy anything, they go to be surrounded by people and an atmosphere that for a short time convinces them that they are not isolated individuals – even if they do not know anyone there. Malls in a sense serve as the “New Religious Image of Urban America: The Shopping Mall as Ceremonial Center’ as Ira Zepp called it. And it seems that this new religiosity was framed around affluence. As real community started disappearing the fake mall community transplanted it. Think about what we want vs. what we get in a mall/lifestyle center:
- Monumentalism– the places that awe us used to be the churches, cathedral’s and city/town halls, because they had a specialness about them – the Axis-Mundi (a symbol representing the center of the world where the heaven (sky) connects with the earth). Look at any impressive building in your area and they will often be the places that are meant to impress us with their sense of authority and permanence. Just look at the malls architecture. It is rarely a big warehouse type building but more likely an impressive structure with pillars, large open spaces, and often multiple levels of spacing and open areas. This is a kind of monumentalism that is designed to impress us. Yet, don’t forget why the mall is there – it’s to get us to spend. And the more we perceive it as a place to celebrate, the more likely we see it as a place for…
- Festival – an outlet for the social orientation and symbolism that characterize human communities and rituality. Where else can we go to celebrate with people? In many areas, there is a revival of things going on in the townships. The biggest in the USA is possibly still the fourth of July celebration, yet the mall is awash with celebration sales at every occasion enticing people to celebrate where they can also buy the items needed to show they are in line with everyone else. The mall is trying to give us an identity and a sense of place. It may look nothing like anything you would consider place in your area, but that is not the point of the mall – any sense of place is all it is trying to do so that you spend at this place and not some other place, Aligned with the idea of festival is the direct connection of …
- Calendrical time in which specific major holidays and the seasonal changes are also celebrated. I once went to a mall store in a blazing hot late August day to buy a new pair of shorts only to find that the store was already changing it seasonal stocks. They were preparing for all their Halloweens sales some two months away yet. After a while it struck me how the marketing calendar worked – they expected sales before the calendrical date and swiftly changed their seasonal displays once that date was just done! Again, this is to emphasize how this kind of festival celebration aspect is merely a tool for promoting business sales. While it might bring people together with the spirit of celebrating a specific calendrical event, the commercial aspect is always the most prominent feature. It has been occurring for so long now (since 1956) that we now take it for granted as the way we always celebrated these holidays and festivals. This then brings up how malls have become the new…
- Ceremonial centers –calendrical time and religiosity give meaning and uniformity to our lives, and makes us feel “at home” – a unity of life if you like with special connections. In many towns, the town center that once was the center of all civic engagement has now transferred to the open areas of the local area mall where the audience catchment is often several small villages and towns.
- Community social interfaces –a place to enjoy “the arts,” to feel safe from the tensions of life, a place to contemplate life alone or in a group. It is now common for retirees to use the mall as an exercise track for general interaction with their peers. Many malls now have measured distances marked out where people can walk and conveniently get a coffee and snack after they are done. The large areas at the centers of many malls now house skating/ice rinks, child play-areas, and open auditoriums where local musicians and even orchestra’s play seasonal music to enhance the gaudy seasonal trimming that hand everywhere to push the calendrical festival of the moment. Why go anywhere else when you can hear a band or theatrical event for free at the mall. And then to ensure that the mall isn’t just an enclosed air-conditioned experience, many modern indoor malls, and especially life-style centers have…
- Environmental/natural connections that are extensive landscaped areas, often in the center of the mall (or throughout the lifestyle center) that have fountains, waterfalls, and live trees in sunlit atrium areas to mimic an outdoors experience (or areas throughout the lifestyle center) within the mall. The designers and mall owners accept our need for the external world, but the better for you to have it at the mall where you can spend more money there after your relaxing commune with nature.
Needless to say, I have emphasized the connections we desire versus what we get, but the story doesn’t quite end there for how a business environment has tricked us into becoming consummate consumers.
TBC….
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