Malls-R-US

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I just got done watching a formatted version of Malls-R-Us on CBC TV. This Documentary came out last year and talks about the evolution of the malls in North America and around the world, it also goes into some detail about the feelings of users and what they are looking for, the mystical properties as well as what is left after the malls have been leapfrogged over. I recommend you try to catch a viewing of the full film, this was about half of the actual film, so I would like to see the whole film at some point.

I found it interesting, nothing new, and more of a nostalgic feeling for the loss of our malls. A feeling I don’t share in the least, I am glad they are dieing, and really, they can’t die fast enough. The picture I used on here is the North Country Shopping Center, and is not yet listed on the deadmalls website, however Champlain Center South is and looking at the area we have 3+ dead malls that tried to take advantage of the Canadians and their tax free shopping weekends. It is officially no more, it was destroyed last fall and now all that remains is an empty parking lot, a small bowling alley/bar a new theatre complex, and a billiards club across the street. The theatre is actually doing pretty well, considering the Regal we have in the main mall area is literally decrepit, but in a way so is that mall, despite the new Target stores and Best Buy.

I think its good for us to look upon the mall and what it brought to this country, and what it encouraged. As a planner (not officially yet) and as somebody who deeply cares about environmental effects, I hate mall development, I hate chain based shopping developments, and I hate car-centered monstrosities to our failed version of capitalism. Maybe I go to far in my dislike, but in the end, they have done little good for few people and have destroyed many, many communities in their rein of terror.

With that I take deep offense to an individual interviewed and focused on in the film, he is a developer in Canada that developed the West Edmonton Mall and is looking to develop and in the process of developing a huge mega "green retail community complex" outside of Montreal. His goal is to destroy one of the last sections of pristine forested land around Montreal and put up this eco-village/shopping experience with the goal of being the largest green development.

I literally got pissed as he talked about this; this is a bastardization of the term green, of the term sustainable, and the term eco. A shopping complex can not be green, ever, by definition, especially one designed in a pristine environmental sensitive forest (listed as such by the government) with man mad trout streams so "condo residents can launch a fly out their window and eat the trout for dinner” its pure bullshit is what it is. I realize I may be a bit more radical when it comes to development then many of the people in the field I wish to go into (planning, even if the focus is transportation) however, I have a firm belief that pretty much all new development is bad unless its done a certain way. If all products sold here were manufactured within 100, hell even 1000 miles of this mall, if parking were metered, if public transport and bike use were heavily encouraged, if the residents could get fresh local produce, then maybe it would be a better option, but not in one of the last pristine environments around Montreal. Nothing that is built on land with wetlands and that is ecologically sensitive can be green in any way.

Call me an idealist, yes I am, but I cant stand especially when developers call their project green, no its not green its like everything else with a couple trees.

There is no such thing as a sprawl green development; there is no such thing as a sustainable commercial experience where you can choose from millions of products and many hundreds of stores. There is no amount of mitigation that can truly offset the effects of developments like this.

Unfortunately I only see one thing stopping this mass consumerism masking as green, that is peak oil and energy and resource requirements, its the one thing I truly hold out hope for, knowing that once we start paying the true price for things that developments like this will be as deserted as the town around Chernobyl.

There is hope, but man things like this make me evaluate how much real progress we have made and what we have to deal with still.

Pushing the Limits

Pushing the Limits - The Slow Issue - GOOD

Trying out my first post with the blogthis! option on Google chrome. I was reading this the other day from Good.is and if you do not know about them, I highly recommend them as a read on all sorts of issues. Anyway, this one was especially important because it involves the urban growth boundary and its effects.

Now I am a huge fan of the boundary, yes I know it stymies development, that’s the point, too much is developed too fast without people truly seeing the cost. No not all development is bad, but unfortunately, my view is, and that most is. Downtowns are empty while we push further and further out, people sometimes think that they want more space and more "freedom" but reality usually hits them hard after a couple years when they figure out that indeed that is not what they are getting and so they want to move further out to get away from everybody else.

That is not what we should be doing, the boundary in this case, for all its faults, has allowed local food to be huge in a large metropolis, it has pushed urban densities to where a world class transit solution is viable, it has allowed cyclability at huge percentages (for the US) and has enabled Portland to be a microbrew haven. This would not have happened without the boundary and it needs to be placed in more cities and states.

We love Vermont for all its natural beauty and old traditional New England towns, that was not possible without the growth roadblocks that were set up many years ago, that prevent Wal-Mart from taking over the state, that encourage local production and farming and that allow limited smarter growth. Yet time after time we see the same people who yearn for the Vermont life, voting for this development or that shopping complex when it comes time due to, "expanding the tax base" it never does and never will. It is a myth in all but the smallest communities, and even then, once the long-term social costs have been taken into account, it’s truly rare that a community truly benefits from strip development. There is a cost to this and its time people in positions of power at the city and state level realize this and make amends before we all end up like another suburb of Los Angelus, disconnected from each other, with little public transportation, and few true open spaces.

All development is not bad, but most is, and until the first thought of planners and planning boards is not to allow that new development, but to make sure the downtowns are filled with mixed residential/commercial buildings, encouraging walkable communities, and encouraging cycling and other active transportation, and focus on true densities and mass transit options, things will not change.