The Arndale subsumes a huge chunk of Manchester under its architectural footprint. The third-biggest city centre shopping mall in Europe, or something like that. It’s safe to say that when it was built it wasn’t popular. My late Gran would not go in it; it was too large, too enclosed, too alien. These days it’s getting middle-aged, having been completed in 1979. But that still doesn’t make it as old as me.
A picture to warm the heart of economists everywhere. Part of me despairs at the scale of it all but I cannot judge because, like everyone in traffic jams, I was just as much part of it as everyone else today. I guess this picture could be most anywhere in the world at this point in the year, but it happens to be Birmingham’s second-ever appearance on this blog (after 19/3/12). This is the Bullring shopping centre, recently totally rebuilt and vast in scale, this is just one wing of it.
In the 12th century we built castles. In the 15th century we built cathedrals. In the 19th century we built factories. In the 20th century we built shopping malls. We might not like them but sometimes you just end up there.
