Exploding Aardvark

The malling of America has taken a decidedly Disney-esque twist. Designed like elaborate outdoor movie sets, lifestyle centers are meant to look like real towns, with curbed streets, parking meters and themed architecture (think Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A.). They’re cropping up on the fringes of cities from Washington, D.C., to San Diego: 150 so far, with 100 more in the pipeline.

Scenes From a New Mall: Shoppers can now find ‘downtown’ in suburbia. (Newsweek, via Fresh Intelligence)

Additional articles:

• A Whole New Mall Game (CNN)
• Not a mall, it’s a lifestyle center (CNN)
• The Mall Goes Undercover (Slate)
• Thinking outside the mall (Boston Globe)
• ‘Lifestyle Centers’ Make Shopping Fashionable (NPR, audio only)
• Atlanta’s Atlantic Station — A Lifestyle Center and (update) An Architect’s View of Better LifeStyle Centers (Flooring the Consumer)

“Lifestyle center” sites for extra creep-outiness:

• Desert Ridge Marketplace (Phoenix, Arizona)
• Mashpee Commons (Mashpee, Massachusetts)
• Aspen Grove Lifestyle Center (Littleton, Colorado)
• Atlantic Station (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Bradley Fair Shopping Center (Wichita, Kansas)
• Otay Ranch Town Center (Chula Vista, California)
• The Shoppes at Grand Prairie (Peoria, Illinois)
• Wayside Commons (Burlington, Massachusetts)
• The Shops at Harper’s Point (Cincinnati, Ohio)
• Deer Park Town Center (Deer Park, Illinois)
• (Site automatically plays music) Coconut Point (Estero/Bonita Springs, Florida)

Brr. Guess it’s almost time to start reading J. G. Ballard’s latest.

Bonus links:

• An animation of R. Crumb’s “A Short History of America”
• Hi-larious spluttering anti-Muslim outrage over the latest issue of Marie Claire includes the sentence: “Apparently there are only 45 malls in Dubai, so I’ll stay in New Jersey, thank you.” (I monitor freakin’ everything so you don’t have to.)