green beam city

The following is part of a series of entries dedicated to issues related to ethnic retailing in larger Canadian cities. The prelude entry can be found here.

Well, from a planner's perspective, there's surely a wealth of difference between Chinatowns and Asian-themed malls.

At the same time, I get a sense that people are generally more accepting of traditional “Chinatowns” than Asian-themed malls. Why is that the case? What is it about these ethnic malls that make them offensive? Aren’t malls just the late 20th Century automobile adaptations of the main street concept?

I suppose the biggest differentiation is that urban core cultural communities (e.g. Chinatown) are visibly more cohesive to the surrounding urban fabric than shopping centres. Core urban areas accommodate mixed range of land uses, while suburban developments have always strictly delineated homogenous land uses. Because of this, I get a sense that concentrations of suburban ethnic retailing are perceived to be much more concentrated than their urban counterparts even if its "ethnic density" (e.g. "ethnic retail jobs" or "ethnic patron" per unit area) may be similar. I attribute this theory to a suburban mall's lack of “buffer” non-retail uses.

A brief browse of contemporary urban planning research will tell you that traditional suburban developments have always notoriously and systemically promoted socio-economic and cultural segregation. So in many ways, could the prevalence of Asian-themed malls be a “tipping point” indicator against our current homogeneous suburban development patterns? Maybe the people’s problems aren’t ethnic malls, but they have finally realized the demise of our current state of suburbanization?

Solution

If my above theory is correct, the answer is clearly to create complete and mixed use communities. I would gladly vouch my support and rise to the challenge to make it happen! Creating complete and mixed use communities will surely align today's municipalities with its objective to lower the degree of socio-economic and the perceived cultural segregation in its communities.

Articles in the series

1. Call to curb ethnic malls in Calgary?
2. “Ethnic themed” stores versus mainstream suburban retailing
3. Chinatowns vs Asian-themed malls? What’s the difference?
4. "What about 'white malls'?" argument