What’s A Shopping Center
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In a country plagued by the definition of sexual relations, at least we concur on what a shopping center is.

Or do we?

Okay, what is a shopping center?

Your answer will depend on whether you’re an ordinary person, who has seen lots of shopping centers and knows what they look like, or a developer who wants to maximize coverage, or a major retailer who wants to be the center of the universe, or a city planner who knows what the mayor and council want to hear.

To anyone involved in retailing or development, that’s not news. But, as they’ve said ever since words were invented, pictures tell the story.

The accompanying site plans are the work of John Baker, done for Adolfo R. Cruz, AIA, of McClellan Cruz Gaylord in Pasadena, California, for a presentation to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) in 1989. They were used again recently by Jay Jostrand, director of real estate for Cinemark USA Inc. at a 1998 ICSC presentation in Dallas, Texas.

And so, we are no closer to the answer than we were before, but at least we have an appreciation for the question. Maybe we should send John Baker to Washington but, then again, we don’t want to see any pictures.