Suckers - the problems with Malls

The latest proposed expansion to St Luke's Westfield in Auckland is bad news.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10675209 

The residents are opposing on the grounds it's an ugly monolith. Canadian author Douglas Coupland (who wrote Generation X) said Malls are like the Emperor's new buildings. Because they are beautiful and exciting inside - apparently-  people tend to ignore the huge tilt slab exteriors as if they weren't there.

And while this is all true; they are very very very very ugly that's not the main problem. 

The artificial interior is also ugly, but in a much different way, but that's not the problem.

Another issue is the parking and the noise and congestion around where they go.  But that's not the main problem.

Then there's the long hours people are made to work - all businesses are forced to be open when the mall is, and in small retail that can be very long anti-social hours that mean that families and kids get neglected for low paying jobs. This is almost the biggest problem, but again not quite.

The problem is what it's doing to our standards of living. In New Zealand all the big malls are owned overseas. When I see a big mall I see a huge money vacuum cleaner that sucks money and puts it in foreign bank accounts. I can hear it sucking and almost see the the notes and change out of the roof and into the sky. Next time you get near a big mall, blink three times to wash away the magic pixie dust and  see if you can see how ugly it is. Then stop and listen carefully and see if you can hear New Zealand's future being vacuumed up.

The rents for the businesses in them are high and often the staff inside are paid very low wages while the goods fetch premium prices... and then all the profits are sucked up and sent offshore.  The earnings are 'repatriated' and sent to Australia or wherever.  Actually it is Australia.  So all this spending is going offshore and worsening our balance of payments and making New Zealand even less profitable than it already is. The more malls and the bigger they are, and the more we shop in them, the lower our standard of living, especially so if you're a serf that works in one. It gives the phrase 'shop till you drop' new meaning.

I'd like to put a tag here - 'steps along the road to banana republic status'. Really the big sucker here is us. 

 

 

 

Posted via email from SamNZed's posterous