miniciti

So, if the center is the mall, what about the margins? Zepp talks about the mall as being a center for the people in local community. He also discusses how the physical organization of each mall typically has a center. For both, he presses the idea of the mall as fulfilling a community’s need for a center, which brings people together and provides an escape from the banal isolation of suburban life and therefore the creation of a ‘wholeness’ that one might gain from going to church on Sunday.

I’m uneasy with Zepp’s argument for the mall as a spiritual center. He definitely explains a different view of the mall as a place for centeredness, but it’s a kind of skewed understanding. Each of us has our own ‘world,’ our own geography, and there are different centers for different people. Perhaps I just don’t like the idea of one developer building a homogenous, anesthetized retail space, built primarily for the sale of goods as a new, community center. It makes the developer almost god-like (note Zepp’s other chapter on James Rouse) and cheapens the notion of spirituality and centeredness.

Every center has its opposition in the margin. And cities inevitably have multiple centers; smaller towns have maybe only one center (perhaps the local Wal-mart). Focus has obviously shifted to new types of retail/mixed-program organizations, but we can certainly do a comparison between the idea of the city center and the suburban mall. I think of Syracuse and it’s rather stuttering city center versus this new mini-city, Destiny USA, that’s being built a few miles away. It’s interesting to think about how and why these two constructs were developed. Both were built according to the needs of the community, the economy and social networks of the region. Lots of people own the city of Syracuse, each buying out plots of land in close proximity. One company, supported by other, global companies, owns Destiny. But as for social fulfillment or spiritual gratification, each is lacking. We still go to the mall, either talk to our friends or wander lonely and aimlessly, and get lost in the theater of retail, a real space/time entertainment.