this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
43 points (100.0% liked)

Fuck Cars

9677 readers
19 users here now

This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

  1. Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.

  2. No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.

  3. Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.

  4. No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

  5. No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.

  6. No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

  7. No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Why American malls are dying, and European ones aren't.

Adam Something's latest video looks at while malls in Europe aren't seeing the same fate as their American counterparts, despite the same competition from Amazon.

He suggests that low-density urban planning and car-dependent suburban sprawl are a big factor that no-one talks about.

For what it's worth, Australia also hasn't seen the massive number of dying/dead malls that the US has since the GFC.

At least in Sydney, many of our big shopping centres tend to be close to public transport. (Think QVB, Westfield Bondi, Westfield Chatswood, Chatswood Chase, Westfield Parramatta, Stocklands Merrylands, Burwood Plaza, Strathfield Plaza, Westfield Hornsby, Westfield Miranda, Castle Towers, Westfield Hornsby...)

Most also have at least two supermarkets (a Coles and a Woolies).

https://youtu.be/586SO9-wWoA

#malls #retail #DeadMalls @fuck_cars #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #economy #economics #MassTransit #PublicTransport @urbanism

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] ngsmcphrsn@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars We also absurdly overbuilt retail (big boxes and malls) in North America. Between 5-9 times more floor area per capita than Europe. (And around 2x Australia).

[โ€“] ajsadauskas@aus.social 2 points 1 year ago

@ngsmcphrsn @fuck_cars Australia and the US is an interesting comparison.

There's a lot of similarities, but a few big differences as well.

  1. Australia never embraced the hypermarket Walmart model of having groceries and a discount department store in one big box centre.

Instead, we have two big supermarket chains (Coles and Woolworths) that own something like 80% of the grocery market, with a few smaller players (Metcash/IGA and Aldi) claiming the rest. (CostCo has tried setting up some warehouses, but they're a tiny player in the market.)

We then have two major discount department store chains (Kmart/Target, which used to be owned by Coles, and Big W, owned by Woolworths) selling clothes, toys, homeware, and small appliances.

Typically, Australian shopping centres are anchored by the two big department stores, plus one or both of the discount department store chains.

Indoor shopping centres tend to fill the role strip malls play in many American suburbs.

  1. In Sydney, with a few notable exceptions, they tend to be within walking distance of a train station. In Melbourne and the other state capitals, many are car-dependent with the only public transport mode being buses.

  2. Our competition regulator thinks if two or three firms split the market, that's competition.

The concentrated markets don't just extend to supermarkets, but shopping centres themselves. Most are either operated by Westfield (Scentre Group) or Vicinity.