Shopping Malls and its Social Impact on the Outer Metropolitan Zones (The Example of the Silesian Voivodeship)

Abstract

Shopping malls have become an inseparable element of modern agglomerations and large cities in Poland. They derive from the tradition of former town marketplaces, around which trade was developed and the life of local community flew. Similarly to them, modern shopping malls are becoming important centres of social life, serving for commercial, entertainment, recreational, cultural, educational, integration as well as socialising purposes. Their comprehensive trade offer makes it possible to shop, cafes are a place for meeting friends, cinemas, discos, bowling alleys ensure entertainment, and playgrounds for children provide a response for the needs of the youngest visitors. More and more often municipal offices and public utility establishments are located at shopping malls, you can also find places of religious worship. The most recent investments are becoming elements of municipal infrastructure even more, as they integrate within their space office and hotel spaces and residential premises. Entertainment parks, theme parks, galleries or theatres constitute an inseparable part of new shopping malls, and development of the entertainment and cultural, and commercial offer is one of the ways of competing with the traditional city centre and developing e-trade. In this way, they have become a place where entire families spend their free time. Shopping malls in the Silesian Voivodeship have a significant impact on smaller settlement units located in outer areas of agglomerations. It consists mainly in changes related to social, economic, as well as functional and spatial spheres. Research conducted (2012) directly among residents, entrepreneurs and local authorities made it possible to identify consequences of the functioning of shopping malls in the region. Studies shows that shopping malls take over more and more functions of higher order (services, public culture, administration) and restrict the economic activity in outer areas of agglomerations. Their social impact refers mainly to inhabitants of towns and rural areas influenced by agglomerations. By providing a comprehensive, attractive and modern commercial, service and entertainment offer, shopping malls have become a commonly visited and used place. At the stage of the irrepressible process of suburbanisation of rural areas surrounding large urban agglomerations and structural changes in towns, it is difficult to conclusively assess the consequences of the operation of shopping malls in outer economic areas. Opinions of residents are positive and indicate many benefits. The impact of shopping malls on small towns and rural areas located in the outer economic area is, in terms of time and form, a very dynamic process which requires further systematic research.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 4 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.