The Parable of the Shopping Mall

From the aftermath of wars, whether endured as victories or defeats, spring the opportunities for change. The twentieth century is flush with examples, stretching from the Russian Revolution to the creative surge here in America after the rout in Vietnam.

By its nature capitalism is war, and the savage reverses for capitalism, the gaping wounds in its pretensions, are the most salient feature in the world today. Whether in the collapse of the Western banking system, the agonies of post-Soviet economies like the Baltic and some Eastern European republics, or the rubble of Indian neoliberal policies, the economic mantras of an entire generation are going up in smoke. For the left it should be a time of unrivaled opportunity.

Take as an example the shopping mall, which changed the American landscape within the course of a generation. The left, by and large, never much cared for malls. They represented privatized space, the collapse of the public realm and the freedoms--of association and public protest--theoretically protected in public space. Malls, whether in strip or covered form, symbolized the conversion of people from citizens to consumers, the death of Main Street, architecture reduced to utter banality, without even the pizazz that allowed Venturi, Brown and Izenour to write Learning From Las Vegas in 1972.

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