1) In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term?
In Margaret Crawford's essay she defines the term "threshold demand," as being the smallest potential number of customers within a given region that are willing to buy an item to generate profit. She goes on to explain the difference between neighborhood shopping centers, such as strip malls that have typical things such as a grocery store, a nail salon, a bank, a pharmacy, a doughnut shop and some other stores that can be found at any other shopping center. These centers typically have a crowd that is willing to travel about two miles on average to get to this center. Community centers are defended as being places where people are willing to travel three to five miles to make a purchase maybe there is an computer store here or a book store. Next is the regional mall, these malls are typical malls such as the "Stonestown Mall," or the Westfield Mall, where there are department stores, movie theaters, maybe around 100 shops and people are willing to travel on average of 25 miles to these places. Furthermore is the super regional mall, where people are looking for something extraordinary, such as the West Edmonton Mall, there are rides, wave pools, various attractions and maybe 300+ shops.
2) In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?
Spontaneous malling is difference between actually going shopping to a mall as an activity to an experience that is omnipresent; it can take place almost anywhere. Designers and city planners can create "pedestrian zones" with nearby parking lots by blocking off areas of a city, "allowing the development of concentrated shopping."
3) According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins?
According to Sorkin there are two myths regarding Walt Disney's ideas regarding the origins of Disneyland. The first is that in 1938 Disney visited the Chicago Railroading Fair where he was invited to drive a historic locomotive, it was doing this that the idea came to him. The Disney Family also visited an unconventional theme park that lacked organization and good hygiene. Therefore Disney wanted to recreate this idea as a utopia in what was once an orange grove in southern California.
4) Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA park. What were those frustrations?
Disney was frustrated by the developments around Disneyland; therefore he relocated in secrecy to Florida in order to create everything without other developers knowing. He was able to create a greater utopia encompassing the customers with it's own hotels and businesses instead of other businessmen's ideas.
5) In his essay "Travels in Hyper reality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this?
Umberto Eco describes Disneyland of a place where consumers are not able to have any other option but the "utopian," option Disney offers. Consumers are not able to escape the game without playing it, or paying for it, "they must agree to behave live its robots." Railings directing visitors to a new location, a new store, or a new ride always interfere with the individual’s decisions; there is no void of indecision.
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