Comments on: All Mall

By: m-d

m-d — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:54:21 +0000

“if the public come back overwhelmingly against it, then that has some sway”

That's a line for a Tui billboard isn't it!?

By: jack

jack — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:58:35 +0000

I live in Newlands, and shop in Johnsonville quite a bit. I saw the petitions being circulated around in the Mall in support of the upgraded mall proposal. A lot of people were signing those peitions. And I’d certainly be willing to bet that most of those people weren’t thinking about urban design or anything like that – they’d have just been thinking that the current mall is a bit crap, has a huge amount of wasted space in the form of the carpark, and it’d be quite nice to have a better place to shop and a better space.

I get what Kent’s saying about the contrast in the control structures between malls & shopping streets, but m-d has an excellent point that the actual difference in shops, when you get down to it, is minimal. Wandering along the golden mile I see Whitcoulls, Supre, Hallensteins, the DVD store… not that different to J’ville mall.

Yes, malls can suck the local life out of a place. But have you been to J’ville recently? It’s not exactly chokka with independant cafes, small art galleries, etc. And how much competition is it really going to be for the golden mile? It’s going to pick off the punters who’re willing to drive 10k from the CBD to shop. Which means it’ll probably mainly affect the people living to the north of the CBD (say, from around Crofton Downs/Ngaio) who would be driving the extra 10k to Porirua (it’s a zip on the motorway) to shop. I don’t think the golden mile should be worried – they’ve already lost those punters. I think Westgate should be crapping themselves about it.

By: Kent Duston

Kent Duston — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:10:22 +0000

Maximus – the intersection of the economy and the planning controls is a particularly vexatious one. On the one hand, I can’t think of any reason why the J’ville Mall should consider its impact on existing businesses in Lambton Quay. To do so would be to entrench the past by effectively taxing the future – putting in place unnecessary barriers to entry for new businesses.

On the other hand, however, is Christchurch. But I’m not sure whether the wilderness they’re busily creating in the CBD would have been ameliorated by some kind of economic testing; perhaps a better approach might be planning controls that result in (in the words of Cr Andy Foster) “we no longer accept blank walls”. The soulless mall culture in Christchurch has these in spades. And Queenstown seems to have been singularly successful in outlawing “corporate” architecture such as those distinctly unappealing plastic golden arches, and doesn’t seem any culturally poorer as a result.

Still, perhaps Queenstown has been saved by the accidents of geography that make enormous malls and big-box retailers an impossibility within the town centre, rather than any particular planning wisdom.

By: Maximus

Maximus — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:08:02 +0000

Sigh…..

No van.
No shell suit.
No pom.

By: Guy

Guy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:06:56 +0000

Again with the sweeping generalisations! And obviously, if its full of Liverpudlians, then the tourists do indeed go to the outer malls.

So you’ve just disproved your own point.

And possibly exposed yourself as a Transit van owning Pom in a shell suit too….

By: Maximus

Maximus — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:04:02 +0000

aaaah, the “hypermarkets”. Mais oui, mon petit poisson. I went to one of those once – a booze hypermarket near the border with England – hideous beyond any extreme – and full of fat white brits with badly fitting shell suits and white transit vans buying shed loads of cut price Kronenberg to sell in back alleys in Liverpool.

Scarred for life.

Perhaps that’s why I dislike malls.

By: alan

alan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:52:23 +0000

While tourists may not visit the outskirts of Paris, the locals certainly do. From the Paris Digest website:
“Most Parisians and inhabitants of Paris region (11 million people) do part of their shopping in huge and modern shopping centers (shopping malls). Most of them are located in residential districts outside of the top central Paris tourist areas. Many of them are only reachable by car. Fortunately, a few of them are easily reachable by the metro.
These shopping centers feature a hypermarket, selling everything from food to clothes at low prices. They include a mall with restaurants and stores selling fashion clothes, books, electronics and lots of other things at reasonable prices. “

By: Guy

Guy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:42:47 +0000

Not so fast there with your sweeping generalisations Maximus !

Last time i went to Paris I headed straight for the outer suburbs, to visit the vast outdoor markets there. Not at all like a supermarket or a mall, and really pretty unlike anything we’ve seen in NZ, but it is fascinating nonetheless. Row after row of small shops selling an amazing range of goods.

“The most famous flea market in Paris is the one at Porte de Clignancourt, officially called Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, but known to everyone as Les Puces (The Fleas).”

By: Maximus

Maximus — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:39:03 +0000

m-d – well call me a romantic if you must, but I certainly don’t go to europe to visit outer suburbs or outer suburban malls. I mean, who does?

There are certainly some minging suburbs in the Parisian banluie (sp?) but no visitor ever gets there. Apart from being filled with Albanian separatists, or ganja selling Senegalese, there’s not a whole lot going for them. Johnsonville is like Mecca compared to the 24th arrondisement….

By: m-d

m-d — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:09:41 +0000

All – Aren’t you perhaps a little guilty of romanticising your European experiences somewhat. Have you been out to the far flung suburbs of these wonderful cities that you insist on comparing our own to? I mean, there are malls are a feature of the suburbs of Paris or London, or anywhere else. The boutique/independant family businesses (normally tourist affairs) are a part of the main shopping parts of the city centres, or ‘old’ centres (and to be fair, in suburban town centres to), not such a different scenario from here… I doubt whether other Main Streets get all snotty when a suburban mall is proposed in a far flung suburb. Sure there is a difference in scale, but even that is ameliorated somewhat by vastly more efficient public transport systems.

Johnsonville versus St Germain is not really a useful comparison – comparing like with like would be a rational place to begin the discussion…