The megamall, built by Canadian developer Triple Five, will include a Nickelodeon Universe theme park, DreamWorks water park, professional-size skating rink, indoor ski slopes and, of course, shopping. Participating retailers include Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co., H&M , Zara and Uniqlo. Some stores won’t be open until next year.
The mall is expected to bring 17,000 jobs in total to the area, an American Dream spokesman said.
— The Wall Street Journal
The project was first proposed in 2003, fittingly, under the name "Xanadu," according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to an American Dream spokesperson, the mall is expected to bring 17,000 jobs to New Jersey's Meadowlands area.
17 Comments
Consumer capitalism's last gasp. This is desperation.
What does a post consumer society look like? Do we go back to subsistence living, hunter gatherer, or does AOC invent a perpetual motion machine to give us all free stuff and we live in a fully automated luxury communist city. Consumer capitalism isn’t going anywhere...unless we are killed for trading goods and services like in
soviet
Exactly. Because all of the other thousands of retailers in millions of square feet selling billions of dollars' worth of goods and services have all disappeared, except for this one place.
I live 5 minutes from this place. And as much as I hate to say it, they won't fail. There is a massive mall 10 miles from this that is probably the only mall in America that is literally a mad house every single day. Online shopping has not affected that mall one bit. They are even expanding and making it nicer!
As for American Dream, I can tell you with a 6 month old baby that I'm excited to go here
this name is embarrassing to everyone. i'm glad the developer isn't American. Also they spent 1.67 billion to develop this, and hired a rendering out on fiver...
Anyway I like the dark humor of the swat helicopter off to the right.
^ "Loss Prevention"
The developer isn't American, but this mall embodies every one of the characteristics of American excess. There is a reason they are making this mall in the US.
The Wikipedia entry gives a start for consumer capitalism:
Consumer capitalism is a theoretical economic and social political condition in which consumer demand is manipulated in a deliberate and coordinated way on a very large scale through mass-marketing techniques, to the advantage of sellers.
This theory is controversial. It suggests manipulation of consumer demand so potent that it has a coercive effect, amounts to a departure from free-market capitalism, and has an adverse effect on society in general.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Italics mine. There are other criticisms to be made—the waste, the corruption of values ("American Dream"). I wonder how much of a madhouse these places have to be to turn a profit.
malls get a hit because they are easy symbols of consumerism. but they're much less pervasive or harmful than the consumerist approaches to healthcare, education, eldercare, individual homes, and transportation among other things. also the irony on this project (read some other articles) is the very serious risk it isn't actually profitable. the developer put up mall of america as collateral. imagine if the failure of this canadian american dream led to the closure of the mall of america, possibly our most iconic symbol of consumer culture!
Compare/contrast:
Athenian agora
The American Dream Mall
Compare/contrast:
Both are vital public places of commerce, interchange, and cultural dissemination, likely the only ones for a great many people. I understand the Greeks hired teenagers to dress up as Athena, Zeus, etc. and walk around the agora and say hello to the kids.
Both are fruit and contain sugars and fiber, likely a good source for a great many people. I understand that humans dress up in clothes and walk around the groves and pick them from the trees.
If this is the American Dream where is the American Nightmare?
Venturi inspired the comparison above (Rome/Vegas). Am reading Learning from Las Vegas. This book is a hoot.
Always amazed me that Venturi thought he had to leave Philadelphia to find kitch.
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