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Strip malls are collections of stores sharing a parking lot, often containing pharmacies, grocery stores, and fast food outlets. Power centers contain big box stores and additional retail stores. Concerns include heavy traffic and reliance on cars, but they offer convenience and easy parking. Live/work spaces are being designed, but proximity to highways and congestion can lead to low-income housing and crime. Strip malls are unlikely to disappear despite aesthetic concerns.
A strip mall is a collection of several stores located in the same building that share a common parking lot. They typically contain shops such as pharmacies, small grocery stores, fast food outlets, or small independent cafes. The building is often located at a major intersection in a city and is normally most easily accessible by car. Due to the high volume of traffic, biking or getting to a strip mall can be difficult.
Another type of strip mall or mini-mall, often called a power center, contains a “big box” store, such as Kmart, Wal-Mart, or Target. They usually have additional stores, perhaps a grocery store, bookstore, pet supply store, electronics retailer, or a variety of other retail stores and fast food or restaurant chains. Typically, the power center is also located in a congested area near a major highway or intersection and, like the smaller version, can be difficult to access on foot.
Malls differ from the larger mall in that they usually contain fewer outlets and are open rather than closed. The former might have been welcomed as convenient, but were often regarded as eye-aches. Early versions usually did not exhibit uniform architecture and were just a collection of buildings, making them unattractive spots. With the rise of the department store, a mall is now more likely to have a uniform architecture, where all buildings have a central theme or look alike, making them more aesthetically pleasing.
One major concern about these shopping areas is that they are sometimes built side by side. A drive through some streets in most large suburban cities can feature one after another. Also, the fact that they are only really accessible by car means that they tend to increase traffic in areas that may already have heavy congestion.
As access to the mall by car is easier, some people are concerned about the shift from walking and using public transport to an over-reliance on individual cars, resulting in increased fuel consumption and pollution. This has led some architects to design live/work environments that often incorporate condos or apartments between stores or right next to them. The problem is, not many people would choose to live near these stores, as they are so close to highways or congested areas. Often these living spaces turn into low-income housing, associated with a higher level of crime. This in turn could make the mall less safe. Some live/work spaces further away from heavy traffic appear to be quite successful.
Despite concerns about the strip mall as a feature of the city, they are unlikely to go away. They pose greater convenience than shopping in the mall, as shoppers can park near the store they want to visit and do not have to enter other facilities to get to a store. While people may find stores convenient, they may also find them ugly.
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