Tuesday, November 20, 2007

On Crocker Park, Part One: Teens

Like I said the other day, places like Crocker Park fascinate me. I think people like lifestyle centers because they feel new. And if there's one thing we love in this country, it's a bright, new, shiny thing.

That newness means that the lifestyle center is, at least at first, untouched by certain "undesirable" factors. Namely, shoppers want to avoid:
  • Teens
  • Poverty
  • Travel
  • The perception of crime
Let's take the issue of teens first.

Consider this quote from "A Breath of Fresh Air" in the 5/6/05 issue of Brandweek*:

"At The Grove in Los Angeles, guests can shop for an iPod at the Apple store, pamper themselves with items from L'Occitane or Bodega chocolates, and browse trendy retailers like Anthropologie or Abercrombie & Fitch. A trolley car transports customers across the 600,000 square-foot shopping center--complete with a park and man-made lake--to a nearby historic Farmer's Market.

Welcome to the lifestyle center, an antidote for moribund mall shopping in the 21st century. Unlike traditional malls, which are enclosed havens for teens, lifestyle centers offer a pleasant adult shopping experience thanks to their expansive open-air settings, amenities such as cinemas and architectural reminders of Main Street USA."

But the malls close because they can't compete with the lifestyle centers. And then the teens start going to the lifestyle centers for the same reason teens end up in libraries -- because it's the only place to hang out, as I saw last Friday at Crocker Park.

Then adults stop going to the lifestyle centers, because they want to avoid the teens, whether they pose a real "danger" or not (most likely not). What happens then is that the adult-to-teen ratio takes a nosedive, and suddenly there aren't enough adults around to keep order when things do get out of hand. And then the lifestyle center gains the bad reputation that the mall once had.

What do you think?

*I accessed this full-text article via Cleveland Public Library. One of the many benefits of having a library card!

posted by Christine at 10:54 AM

1 Comments:

Blogger LaDonna said...

Why are teens even allowed to hang out at malls late at night anyway? Am I the only one who had to be home by dark and never went anywhere that my mother didn't know about? Easton in Columbus is Crocker Park's twin (several Columbus malls have shut down) and I have a fond memory of watching a pack of teenage girls get into a fist fight and topple a security guard. They weren't even kicked out! 15 minutes later they walked past us again.

8:37 PM  

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