Singapore - Vivo City?
April 27th, 2008 by boon
I must admit it isn’t quite wrong to reach new heights of retail utopia - but a ‘beach’ atop a shopping mall has got to be one of those things that makes me wonder if someone was just getting ahead of themselves.
The landscaping is done very nicely, I must say. It makes for walking around a lot more pleasant, which is a good thing - since you don’t want to drown in the sea of shops all day.
Maybe I’m just tired of the plethora of shopping experiences. Isn’t there anything else beneficial to humankind that can be enjoyed that doesn’t have to be directly driven, supported, or fueled by open markets and capitalism? What ever happened to state-managed open parks, zoos, museums and art galleries?
I mean, we could certainly get some really smart guys behind some of the marketing of these, and get the word out. We ought to be challenged to look beyond consumerism. Maybe we could start by meeting in the middle - have the retailers sponsor a no-spending day, for once. Everyone just goes out and run in fields or admire the landscape, watch some performing arts, I dunno…
It’s one of those things where I just want enjoy being around - and not have to spend money all the time. Every time I walk through shopping malls I feel guilty because I know the landscaping is all pruned to a fault because they respect me as a consumer - just that I don’t want to spend the money.
I’m also partly wary that we’ll all get into a cycle of expectation that we don’t all have to play the buyer/consumer all the time. Why should plain water (not bottled branded drinking water) have a price tag? I mean, haven’t we all arrived at the understanding that the price we’re paying is for the experience and not so much the commodity? Is a (free) glass of water too much to ask?
The reason why we pay for restaurant food isn’t because we need food - it’s because we want the experience that comes with the package.