Civilizations develop around commerce. Communities begin with trade and bartering; but a city, a capital, a metropolis hatches from a metronomic economy. Like a heartbeat, goods arrive at a focal point and money flows out. Like the port of Alexandria, the caravans of the silk road, and the bazaars of Arabia, the flow of mercantile was paramount to the growth of human globalization. And now in the modern age we have … the Mall.
As if the Grand Bazaar of yore were redesigned by the robotic algorithms of today, the mall is a self-replicating virus that alters the DNA of society. As the cubicle is to the office, as the subdivision is to the suburb, so is the mall to commerce. What may seam like an innocent collection of local merchants is, in actuality, an infection of a few global corporations sucking the arterial heartbeat of commerce dry.
Park by the J.C. Penny and meet Mat and Veronique at the food court and we’ll just wander … the Mall.
*Grumbles are specifically off-the-cuff, no research went into this grumble.
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