The Mall of America: Bigger? Better? Best?

  I realize that I’ve entered this place with the eye of a stranger in a strange land. An American expatriate who has lived in a developing nations for over ten years and who is coming from a lands with power outages, lack of medical care and extreme poverty, my perception of this mall is quite different to those who have made a visit to this place part of their summer vacation.

(images by shamash)

I usually avoid malls at all costs, but since I was in Minneapolis-St. Paul for a day, I decided to visit one of Minnesota’s biggest tourist attractions: the Mall of America, the largest mall in the United States. This mall represents the ultimate American past time: consumerism as a form of entertainment.

With 4.3 miles of total storefront footage, the mall has over 13,000 on-site parking spaces, 12,000 employees, 1.2 miles of 100-foot-high skylight glass (providing 70% natural light to the premisis,) and over 400 trees between 10 and 35 feet tall. Put on your walking shoes, because the walking distance around one level of the mall is over half a mile long, and there are four levels.

The stores themselves aren’t original- they are the typical stores one can find in any major city in America. Yet, on the shuttle bus from my hotel I met couples and families from five different states who had made the Mall of America part of their summer vacation.

Maybe the attraction is the 6,000 sq. foot Lego Imagination Center with 29 full-size Lego models, including cranes, dinosaurs, and spacecraft. Maybe the 7-acre amusement park- all under skylights- at the mall’s core was the attraction. In it you can find the half-mile long, 30 mph Pepsi Ripsaw Roller Coaster and the 70-foot high Paul Bunyan’s Log Chute Mountain which has a 45-ft. plunge into the Log Chute Lake. The ride itself holds over a quarter million gallons of water.

What I couldn’t help but notice was the frenetic energy of the place, influenced, I know, by my own anxiety; malls scare me. The corridors were crowded with people loaded down with bags of clothes, shoes, toys, and more toys.  I didn’t belong here. It was some sort of crazy zoo.

___Was it the florescent lights? The neon signs? The little ghosts of Bad Idea Bears hovering over the shoulders of shoppers whispering, “Charge it! Charge it! Charge it!” With so many Americans over-their heads in insurmountable debt, I had to wonder: do any of these people NEED what they’re buying?

I realize that I’ve entered this place with the eye of a stranger in a strange land. An American expatriate who has lived in a developing nations for over ten years and who is coming from a lands with power outages, lack of medical care and extreme poverty, my perception of this mall is quite different to those who have made a visit to this place part of their summer vacation.

But in my estimation, the whole place was a zoo, and Americans- the ones who vote and don’t vote, the ones who consume one fourth of the world’s energy sources even though they comprise but 5% of the world's total population (click here), the ones who are chronically in debt and who guzzle gas in their SUV's, are slowly destroying themselves in piles of unnecessary, frivolous stuff. And how many trees did 4.2 million square feet of macadam and steel displace?

I never want to get used to this; I never want to become numb. I remembering George W’s words after 9/11: “If you want to patriotic, shop.” Seems Americans have listened, trying to fill a void, trying to buy happiness with material things.

God help us all to become more aware of how our lifestyle choices affect our individual and collective psyches, our national identity, and most of all: the rest of the world.

(p.s. I came home from the mall with some clothes and a journal made of recycled paper that I bought at Barnes and Noble. I guess you could say that I, too, am participating in this mall experience by choosing to buy. I am, in many ways, a hypocrite.)

Comments

[Jeremy]

Well, we tend to need clothes once in a while, and a journal is in the necessity category...so don't be too hard on yourself.
:)

I feel the same in any mall, so I just don't go any more. They make me ill. These mega-malls just add more spectacle to the artifice, which I suppose is how it gets on the itineraries of restless families on vacation, but isn't the whole thing just kind of obscene?

Great post, as always. Got me stewing...

[datta]

I grew up partly in a mall; my mom owned a store there and we went there everyday after school. ALL of our trips throughout my life were centered around shopping. We flew to NJ a few times because there was no tax on clothes. We always went to outlet malls as a family vacation. Even today when I talked to my mother, she was in KC shopping. It really is kind of sick but I've been in that mode before too.

[Nathan]

What a pile of shit, I'll never understand people's need to feel absolute guilt for their own existence.

There is nothing wrong with being a "consumer" despite the evil connotations this word may carry for members of the political left. It feels good to buy things, to consume things, it's this drive to provide a good life for yourself and your family that has made America the prosperous nation it is today. When everyone has the freedom to act in their own self interest, to better themselves and to live without fear of coercion from others, we all gain.

The Mall of America may be frivolous, it may be extremely decadent but it is also the ultimate example of freedom. As Penn Jillette once said "Decadence is freedom with a smile."

[Freddie]

The "sale rack" at the GAP always eases the pain a little bit for me. Of course knowing the pair of pants you scored for $9.99 is probably the same as the salary that the worker was paid for the week makes seem almost sad. I agree with Nathan in that 'decadence is freedom with a smile' and sometimes a bargain. :O)

[Doctor J]

Hey Shamash!
Rock on, Girl!! I share your Mall perspective, but don't expect Americans living here to get it. The reacculturation process is nearly impossible. When we have seen the things we have seen in the 3rd world, we have a completely different world view. It is so great to meet people here who have lived in developing countries. Malls are still way too intense for me. You know, I hate shopping. I don't plan on getting used to things here, I plan to get back to the "real world." That being said, this country is the best thing going. But talk about overload...whoa!
Missing you!
Dr. J