Shopping Mall

The concept is intriguing, the writing is very good and readable, but who are the targeted readers for Shopping Mall? This is a small booklet by Matthew Newton that not many readers will find a page-turner. Shopping malls, originally an American invention by a famed architect, are now a worldwide concept. The first mall was built in 1956 near Minneapolis. This booklet appears to be part-memoir and part-essay about the concept of the shopping mall. Newton analyzes two major malls, Southdale and Monroeville. The original concept of concentrated stores on two or three levels for the shoppers’ convenience was a good one but quickly became part of big business, with nationwide conglomerates of malls. Throughout, Newton weaves in his personal life and experience, partly connected with malls, from young childhood to young adulthood. He reviews the changes that occurred over fifty years, viewing malls from original safe places to today’s often risky concentration of people subject to terrorists’ attacks, mass shootings, and stabbings. Readers perhaps expected more, like insight into the intriguing behind-the-scenes of running and managing of such enormous businesses as malls.