Location!!!:
What I have noticed in terms of
citizenship while working in Candy World is that I have seen our capitalist
economy with its ideals of self-interest and competition firsthand. Within the mall’s
food court there are three places that can provide consumers with something to
satisfy their sweet tooth cravings alone: Haagen Dazs, Showcolate, and Candy
World. Just outside of the food court lays a TCBY / Mrs. Fields Cookie Store
and a Starbucks and other various dessert selling stores, too. These
storeowners chose the specific lots for their businesses within the mall for
the purpose of looking for the most advantageous spot to get the most customers
and earn the most money. Adam Smith once said, “Every individual is continually
exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever
capital he can command” (Smith 2). Every storeowner is looking out for his or
her own self, hoping to compete with other business owners trying to make money
off of a very similar product or industry and steal the other companies’
business away from them.
Potomac Mills is also a product of
suburbanization, in which this process is becoming a danger to communalism. The
mall is located right off an interstate highway and surrounded by other well-known
big-name businesses like GameStop, Wal-Mart, Shoppers Food Warehouse, etc. It
is not located within a walking distance of any immediate neighborhood, but
rather requires a commute to get there. The mall creates problems for the
larger community outside of it because malls encourage people to go shop and
buy for their own purposes, rather than to establish community with other
fellow shoppers like with smaller family businesses. “Today’s suburbanites shop
in large, impersonal malls… they are carefully designed for one primary,
private purpose – to direct consumers to buy” (Putnam 211).
With my own experiences, I notice that I take a role in the capitalist system and work for a company that competes with others in the free market, and I also participate in feeding the process of suburbanization by working for the shopping malls that diminish the sense of place from my area. Also, I am guilty of going to the mall to shop, and do not go for the purpose to partake in any sort of communal activities there. As a result my sense of citizenship is not one that is very active in the community, however through these reflections I would like to change that.
Candy World and Potomac Mills Map and Directions
Conversational Links:
Official Potomac Mills Website
Associational Links:
Staff and Citizenship, Products and Citizenship, Bibliography
Navigational Links:
Place and Citizenship Main Page
Image citations:
Edited Mall Directory: http://www.simon.com/mall/images/floorplans/1260Potomac_MillsMall.gif