America at the Mall

Lisa Scharoun, a Professor and Head of School, School of Design at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, is a multi-award winning teacher, researcher and designer with expertise in Visual Communications and Cross-cultural design. She has published research on the symbolism of shopping malls in the Australasian Journal of Popular Culture and The Conversation. She has exhibited her design, photography and fine art in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and China.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction      1. The Birth of the Mall      2. Suburbia and the American Dream      3. The Decline of Downtown      4. The Mall and Religion      5. Main Street      6. Teens and the Mall      7. Senior Citizens and the Mall      8. The Mall as “Public” Space      9. The Mall and the Environment      10. Dawn of the Dead Mall      11. The Rise of the Big Boxes      12. Regional Mall Case Studies      13. Case Studies: Super-Regional Malls, Lifestyle Centers, and Hybrids      14. New Urbanism and the Death of the Urban Mall      15. The Future of Public Space in America      Notes      Bibliography      Index

“This book covers it all.... Recommended”—Choice; “charts the rise and fall of the shopping mall, looking at the mall not just as a commercial site, but as a rich institution of American culture”—Reference & Research Book News.