ABSTRACT
Malls are by their nature anti-urban. There are two types of mall – vast out-of-town complexes surrounded by thousands of car parking spaces and in-town shopping centres sitting like alien spaceships that have landed on existing towns and cities. Both face an uncertain future because they are built to cater for the multiple retailers that have been so badly hit by the current retail crisis. It is worth spending a moment looking at some of the newer malls that were built or almost built in the late 2000s because in many respects they had started to evolve into something different that urbanists didn’t hate. The old Marks & Spencer has been rebranded as Stok and is being converted by local property firm Glenbrook into high quality offices around a central glazed atrium. Privately owned malls will also need to evolve both in town and out of town.
