Community decision-making and privatised spaces: A case study of suburban shopping malls in the Wellington Region

Abstract

Shopping malls are a widely disparaged urban form, particularly when these have been built in favour of traditional public spaces. Critiques have ranged from their aesthetic to the impact they have on civic life and broader democracy. However, despite being in private ownership, they have been found to play crucial community functions. This is particularly true in suburban communities which often lack alternative forms of community infrastructure. Concurrently, across the globe, a number of malls are in decline and some communities are losing the only form of community space available to them. Moreover, they are often unable to contribute to decision-making regarding these spaces due to their private ownership. This thesis examines the role that suburban shopping malls, in Aotearoa New Zealand can, and do play as community spaces. It assesses decision-making mechanisms, questioning how communities can participate in the development of what they conceive of as their community spaces. Two cases of declining malls in the Wellington Region– the Johnsonville Shopping Centre and the Wainuiomata Mall were selected and 12 semi-structured interviews and three focus groups were conducted. This research found that these malls played an important role as spaces where communities were built and members socially engaged in often ad-hoc, but significant ways. However, due to the private nature of these spaces, community members often felt powerless and unable to participate in decisions relating to this space. This thesis demonstrates the ways in which the legal binary of public and private fails to encapsulate the nature of modern spaces, which in reality, typically exist as a socially constructed hybrid of both. It challenges the existing framework of property rights based on this binary, and subsequent wider community exclusion from decision-making. In response, this thesis offers policy recommendations around community decision-making in order to stimulate vital suburban community space into the future.

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