Greyfields

Featured in

  • Published 20090901
  • ISBN: 9781921520761
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm)

WHEN A SHOPPING centre is dying, its patronage slipping away, it is referred to as a greyfield. At this point annual sales have slumped below $200 a square metre. The centre slowly hollows, tenants are given notice and town planners swoop with schedules for demolition. The centre will stay open until a third of the tenants find other lodgings. The empty shops close their roller-doors and the arcades shut down in dark rows, one by one. The centre is sealed, locks are placed on the doors and the car park buckles at the edges, weeds pushing up the bitumen in anticipation.

This will happen to one in every four shopping centres. Shopping centres die in stages: like retail lepers, they lose limbs. Anchors are what keep them alive. They are the heart – a popular franchise, supermarket or department store that directs traffic past the smaller stores. Anchors such as food halls and cinema complexes are placed at the end of long stretches of glazed windows. The industry standard states that the maximum distance shoppers are prepared to walk between anchors is three hundred metres. This is called anchor drag.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Without country

FictionTHE RIGGER COILED the line of wet rope around his hand, reeling in the sea crate they were using as a makeshift raft. 'Look...

More from this edition

Stupid money

EssayShortlisted, 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, Essay Advancing Public DebateAt particular times a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid...

Cuba’s China syndrome

Essay‘VIVA RAUL! VIVA Cuba! Viva la Revolución!' I awoke abruptly, stumbled over bottles at my feet and leaned over the wrought-iron balcony. A group...

Chère Colette

MemoirAT IRREGULAR INTERVALS of between twenty and thirty years came great floods which were afterwards remembered as one remembers insurrections or wars and were...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.