Strip Malls Endure Through Sheer Utility

You may hate them, but you use them. Strip malls are the scourge of planning, but a blessing for commerce. Maybe they're getting better?

1 minute read

May 23, 2003, 3:00 PM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"As retail space, strip malls have all the pull of a mousetrap. Drive up. Get out. Walk in. Drive away. Nothing cuts the distance between consumer and car shorter. And by virtue of their overwhelming numbers, they lose any claim to being unique. That goes without saying, really. A lot of us don’t even give them second thought anymore. As architectural creations, they’re charmless. Some would call them architectural anti-matter. That crowd might want to give the strip mall phenomenon a deeper look."

Thanks to ArchNewsNow

Friday, May 23, 2003 in Salt Lake City Weekly

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