Shopping Malls
The Mauling of America
With the shift of the white middle class to suburbia in the 1950s, malls
became one of the very few forms of public space or pseudo-city
centers in the landscape. Suburban youths escape the house by hanging at
malls, rather than parks or downtown. And the white or pink
collar middle class can after work get away from the TV set by shopping.
Malls capitalize on this by recreating some of the spectrum of
venues typical of authentic cities, without the hassles of weather,
parking, or "social undesirables."
