This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 2000, Number 10. To order this issue or a subscription, visit the HDM homepage at .

© 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the publisher

Kiss Nature Goodbye

Marketing the Great Outdoors, by John Beardsley

HATS OFF TO commodity culture. The ture is emblematic of a larger phenom- endless quest for new products has enon. I refer to the growing commodi- spawned another hot-selling hybrid: fication of nature: the increasingly the not-entirely-entertaining, but not- pervasive commercial trend that views really-educational, simulated “natural” and uses nature as a sales gimmick or attraction. At the Mall of America, it’s marketing strategy, often through the called UnderWater World. You pay production of replicas or simulations. $10.95, go down the escalator, and en- Commodification through simulation ter a dark chamber where synthetic is most obvious in the “landscapes” of leaves in autumnal tints rustle as you the theme park and the shopping mall. pass. You’re in a gloomy boreal forest Such places have been widely discussed in the fall, descending a ramp past bub- of late: the malling and theming of the bling brooks and glass-fronted tanks public environment and the prevalence stocked with freshwater fish native to of simulation as a cultural form have the northern woodlands. At the bottom elicited skeptical commentary from, of the ramp, you step onto a moving among others, philosopher Jean Bau- walkway and are transported through a drillard, architectural historian Mar- 300-foot-long transparent tunnel garet Crawford, essayist Joan Didion, carved into a 1.2-million-gallon aquari- novelist and semiologist Umberto Eco, um. All around you are the creatures of design critic Ada Louise Huxtable, and a succession of ecosystems: the Min- landscape designer Alexander Wilson.1 nesota lakes, the Mississippi River, the Readers of cultural criticism are gener- Gulf of Mexico, and a coral reef. You’ll ally familiar with these writers and I “meet sharks, rays, and other exotic won’t rehearse their arguments. Rather creatures face to face.” Sound like fun? I want to put a different spin on the Call 1-888-DIVE-TIME (no kidding) problem, one attuned especially to the for tickets and reservations. landscape. By itself, UnderWater World won’t Specifically, I am interested in how rock the planet. But if not particularly the commercial context is modifying significant, this piece of concocted na- our conceptions of nature—changing

HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE 1 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye the cultural meanings and values of the local mall or the downtown bou- few—those under sixteen must be ac- nature. While many observers focus tique? Is this beneficial or harmful? companied by an adult on weekend on the more outrageous examples of Perhaps it is time to abandon at least evenings; everyone under twenty-one malling or theming—the many muta- some of our ideas about nature—Na- must carry government-issued photo tions of Disneyland, Universal City ture with a capital “N,” imagined as identification. Walk in Los Angles, the various met- independent of culture—and to take Yet malls are wildly popular and in- ropolitan simulacra in Las Vegas—I the measure of the new “nature” we creasingly the locus of our leisure ac- want to explore how nature is pack- have been creating. tivities. The Mall of America claims to aged for consumption in more ordi- Why should the commercial land- be the “most visited destination” in nary places: first, in our local malls; scape matter to designers and those the United States, annually attracting and second, in nature-based theme concerned with the designed environ- more than 40 million visitors. On the parks. The phenomena that are chang- ment? Partly because there is much regional scale, Potomac Mills, an out- ing—even distorting—traditional con- room for improvement in this com- let mall in northern Virginia that re- ceptions of nature are not limited to a mercial landscape: such places might ceives 23 million visits a year, is now few flagship sites but rather are per- benefit in interesting ways if the famil- the number-one attraction in that vading our surroundings. Almost every- iar landscape types, the park and the state, outpacing even the Civil War where we look, whether we see it or garden, were expanded to encompass battlefields, Colonial Williamsburg, not, commodity culture is reconstruct- the food court, the parking lot, and and amusement parks like Busch Gar- ing nature. the flood-control sump hole. It also dens and Paramount’s Kings Domin- This is not, however, another re- matters because the commercial land- ion.2 Malls feature entertainment and quiem for lost wilderness. We humans scape is an embodiment of demo- recreation for children and adults, have always modified our landscapes— graphic trends that cannot be ignored. ranging from multiscreen cinemas and blisher sometimes for better, sometimes for Over the past few decades, as suburbia video-game arcades at local malls to worse. Nature shapes culture even as culture inevitably alters nature. Nor is At the Body Shop, “natural essences” are linked to physical, this a lament for some more “authen- emotional, and economic personal fulfillment. The customer tic” version of nature. The membrane here is flattered: the pampering provided by natural oils and separating simulation and reality is far aromas is a reward for worldly success; nature here is under- more porous than we might want to acknowledge. For at least five cen- stood as a source of products that makes you feel good rather turies, since the 15th-century Francis- than as a primary and complex phenomenon for which one can monk Fra Bernadino Caimi bears personal and social responsibility. reproduced the shrines of the Holy Land at Sacro Monte in Varallo, Italy, has become more politically and cul- full-scale enclosed amusement parks for the benefit of pilgrims unable to turally dominant, shopping malls have like Camp Snoopy at the Mall of travel to Jerusalem, replicas of sacred become one of the centers of our cul- America. Almost everywhere, pay-for- places, especially caves and holy ture. Far more than shopping happens play is available in some form: one can mountains, have attracted the devout. there: malls have usurped many public play indoor miniature golf, climb syn- In the United States, simulations have functions; indeed they have challenged thetic rock walls, face down foes in featured prominently in entertainment prevailing ideas of “public space”— games of laser tag and in virtual-reality landscapes: the 1915 Panama-Pacific malls are ersatz town centers, with po- intergalactic battles. Who needs a International Exposition in San Fran- lice stations, registries of motor park—one of those places with grass cisco, to name just one gaudy example, vehicles, satellite educational institu- and trees, playgrounds and benches— included a scenic railroad whose route tions. They have even been venues for when you can while away a Sunday af- featured fabricated elephants, a replica weddings (convenient, no doubt, for ternoon in a safe, sanitized, and of Yellowstone National Park com- those last-minute gifts). But of course, economically segregated simulation of plete with working geysers, and a they are not really civic spaces; these a public space? mock-up Hopi village constructed by privately owned emporia encourage the Santa Fe railroad. But if simula- discreet forms of economic exclusion How exactly is nature constructed in tions are not new, they have, in recent and social regimentation. As entertain- these new commercial places? When decades, become almost ubiquitous, ment and tourist landscapes, they are we shop at stores like the Body Shop and increasingly they are being used open only to those who can pay. As and the Nature Company, we receive for commercial purposes. And this private places, they limit freedoms of whole sets of messages about nature. raises an important question: what speech and assembly. The Mall of At the Body Shop, “natural essences”

does it mean when nature is for sale at America, for instance, enforces a cur- are linked to physical, emotional, and of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

2 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2000 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye economic personal fulfillment. The vals in the corridors of Potomac Mills it’s now the best place to experience customer here is flattered: the pam- show images of forests and waterfalls. our confusion about nature and to be- pering provided by natural oils and And the entrance to Montgomery gin to understand what we ought to do aromas is a reward for worldly success; Mall, also in suburban Washington, about it. nature here is understood as a source features a large mural of the kind of The first Rainforest Café opened at of products that makes you feel good pastoral scene once characteristic of the Mall of America in 1994; today rather than as a primary and complex Maryland. The mural even includes there are twenty-five (and counting) in phenomenon for which one bears per- trompe l’oeil binoculars—a device you the United States and ten overseas. sonal and social responsibility. At the can’t use to gaze on a landscape that’s The brainchild of Steven Schussler, an Nature Company, thousands of goods no longer there. entrepreneur with experience in ad- from stuffed tigers to geodes, from Nature at the mall can be under- vertising and restaurants, the concept bird feeders and wind chimes to field stood as using the idea of “adjacent at- was developed over some seventeen guides and wildlife videos, have the ef- traction,” as this has been described by years. For a while, it existed as a pro- fect of condensing space and time. Richard Sennett and Margaret Craw- totype inside Schussler’s home in St. The nature presented in this chain ford. Adjacent attraction refers to the Louis Park, Minnesota. Schussler had store is not localized, dynamic, and phenomenon by which unlike objects, parrots, toucans, tortoises, an iguana, differentiated into various ecosystems, removed from their ordinary circum- and a diaper-clad baboon; he claims but homogenized, static, portable, and stances, reinforce each other’s value— that it was his wish to give these pets a consumable. The Nature Company in other words, if you see something cageless environment that inspired the implies a kind of global-scale brico- that usually makes you feel good, you Rainforest Café. “It became my pas- lage, a grab bag of concoctions from might also feel good about whatever sion to educate and entertain people who-knows-where, the whole assort- happens to be placed next to it. Seeing about the rain forests, which are the blisher ment saying little about the actual something unexpected, out of context, lungs of the world,” he said. The places from which these products orig- makes it seem unfamiliar and therefore café—which combines, says Schussler, inate. Rather, the goods speak tellingly exotic, stimulating.4 Nature at the mall “the sophistication of a Warner Bros. about those for whom they are mar- is just such an unexpected phenome- store with the animation of Disney keted—about affluent people who en- non. The marketing logic is clear: if and the live animals of a Ringling joy nature in their spare time, who the customer likes nature, the cus- Brothers/Barnum and Bailey circus”5 care about nature and want to be sur- tomer will like the mall and want to —has proved wildly successful, both rounded by things that express their shop. Moreover, the demographic popular and remunerative. concern. What is really available at group that likes nature most is precise- In all its diverse locations, the Rain- these stores, however, is not on the ly the affluent group these malls are forest Café is much the same, a large shelves: in a sense, the chief product of striving to attract. shopping and dining space decorated the Body Shop and the Nature Com- In a growing number of malls and lit to simulate a fabulous and exot- pany is irony, albeit unintended. These across the country and around the ic jungle. The Café at Disney Village is boutiques promise to help us get in world, you will now encounter a perhaps the most elaborate to date. It touch with nature, but instead they ef- themed store and restaurant called the is housed in a sixty-five-foot-tall artifi- fectively remove us from it—instead of Rainforest Café. Billed as “a wild place cial mountain that steams and thunders being outside enjoying nature, we’re at to shop and eat” and “an environmen- at regular intervals. Water cascades the mall buying products that express tally conscious family adventure,” the down the outside, past real and fake our love of nature.3 Rainforest Café is one of the more plants. Audio-animatronic animals, The larger environment of the mall pointed instances of how commercial- from butterflies to iguanas to giraffes, likewise exploits our affection for na- ized mass culture is transforming per- beckon to passers-by. The cavernous ture in order to soothe us in the act of ceptions of nature. It mixes simulation interior is divided into retail and eating consumption. At most malls, plants are with reality, entertainment with educa- areas by a huge, arched, saltwater tank scattered around liberally, especially in tion, and consumption with conserva- containing simulated coral and real the food courts; of course, this indoor tion. It makes of nature an exuberant tropical fish. The bar is constructed to profusion compares tellingly with the and wholly artificial spectacle, even as look like a gigantic toadstool. Walls are typical mall exterior, whose gray ba- it aspires to inform customers about fashioned of faux rock; artificial plants, nality makes the indoor embellish- actual imperiled ecosystems. The vines, and Spanish moss are draped ments seem all the more lush. And at Rainforest Café uses animals for from every nook and cranny. Water some malls—Potomac Mills, for in- amusement and hopes to protect en- spills down the walls and mists out stance—the presence of real plants is dangered species. It tempts us to eat from fountains. Fans pumps into the supplemented by videotaped nature: and buy and asks us to reduce and re- air a “rain forest aroma” created by

large monitors hung at regular inter- cycle. It’s imaginative and it’s fun, and Aveda Corporation from floral ex- of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

3 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2000 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye

tracts. Simulated tropical storms con- line-caught fish are served, and the up. Under the guise of education and vulse the place every twenty-two min- kitchen tries to avoid buying beef from conservation, the Rainforest Café sus- utes, complete with flashes of deforested areas. In 1999, the compa- tains the overconsumption of resources lightening and booms of thunder. ny became the first national restaurant that characterizes middle- and upper- More audio-animatrons perform: ele- chain to serve what it calls “bird class American life. At the same time, it phants trumpet and gorillas beat their friendly” shade-grown organic cof- offers a lesson in the commercial re- creation of nature; as a simulacrum, it Conserve, conserve, conserve. Consume, consume, consume. exemplifies a new phenomenon in More and more, as the Rainforest Café makes acutely clear, which nature is neither represented nor copied, but replaced by a wholly conservation and consumption are two sides of the same human concoction. cultural currency. Malls are only one part of the com- mercial landscape; the same redefini- chests. Meanwhile, real macaws and fee—coffee which does not require the tion of nature is happening at theme cockatoos are on display for con- extensive clearing of trees since it can parks. Sea World, for example, has re- sumers’ amusement and edification. be grown under the existing canopy. cently opened the five-acre Key West In the end, the Rainforest Café is Live animals at the Rainforest Cafes World, just 350 miles from the real more jumble than jungle. While pur- are carefully tended: each café has a Key West. It is a miniaturized, sani- porting to depict the tropical rain for- full-time curator (some with degrees tized version of the southernmost U.S. est, it creates a hodgepodge of in ornithology or marine biology) and city, complete with pastel-shaded different ecosystems, from ocean reef a trained staff to care for the fish and knockoffs of local architecture, non-al-

to savannah. Stirred into the mix are birds. The birds come not from the coholic margaritas, and performers blisher such non-rainforest animals as zebras, wild but from selected domestic impersonating colorful characters of giraffes, and elephants. The melange breeding programs. And in 1997, the Key West, including a sand sculptor of environments makes the Rainforest corporation reportedly spent $175,000 (“she’s interactive,” we are told) and a Café seem less like a simulation than per unit on outreach programs, for in- magician pretending to be W.C. Fields like what Jean Baudrillard describes as stance, taking the parrots to schools selling swampland. Key West World a simulacrum: a copy for which no and “educating children about the includes interactive animal exhibits: a precedent exists.6 As if that weren’t plight of the rain forest.”7 stingray lagoon, where kids can feed confusing enough, the place features a But none of this conspicuous do- shrimp to the rays, and an artificial talking banyan tree named Tracy, who gooding disguises the fact that both the reef with dolphins to feed and pet. delivers the ultimate mindbender: at ecological and educational messages at The reef features plastic sea fans and intervals she mouths exhortations to the Rainforest Café are garbled. We fiberglass-reinforced concrete coral; it “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” while at can, so the message goes, have it both is gently washed by mechanical waves, other intervals she urges us to try the ways—we can consume and conserve which roll back to reveal plastic shells tasty food or buy the themed mer- at the same time. This is illogical, to in rocky grottoes. Fake rocks are bet- chandise. Conserve, conserve, con- say the least, and possibly deceptive, in ter than real ones, Sea World’s curator serve. Consume, consume, consume. that it might comfort some into think- told a Washington Post reporter, be- More and more, as the Rainforest ing that consumption and waste aren’t cause “real rock doesn’t have as much Café makes acutely clear, conservation among our most pressing social and character as the molds.”8 and consumption are two sides of the environmental challenges. As at the Sea World is more famous for a same cultural currency. Nature Company and the Body Shop, show featuring Shamu, the copyright- But this simulated cloud has a silver the Rainforest Café tries to entertain ed killer whale, which combines real- lining. Each Rainforest Café features us, to make us feel good in its approxi- time animal action with a large-screen an animatronic crocodile in a pool into mation of nature; but it does not teach video documenting the lives of orcas which customers throw coins. The us to be responsible. (In fairness, its in their natural habitat. The real and money is collected and donated to promotional material claims only that the reproduced play simultaneously groups who work to preserve the rain the chain is “environmentally con- here, accompanied by a voice-over forest, including the Rainforest Al- scious,” not environmentally responsi- that allows Sea World’s parent compa- liance, the Center for Ecosystem Sur- ble.) We do not learn about the remote ny, Anheuser-Busch, to boast that they vival, the Rainforest Action Network, consequences of our consumption— are being good corporate citizens, re- and the World Wildlife Fund. Simu- what resources were used, what envi- searching and protecting endangered lated rather than real coral is used in ronments might have been disrupted, species—although they never explain the fish tanks so as not to contribute to what exploited labor might have been precisely how. They want you just to

the destruction of living reefs. Only employed, where our waste will end have fun and relax—multinational cap- of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

4 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2000 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye ital is minding the environment. From doesn’t sell like the thrill of a pseudo- distance between the haves and have- the show itself, however, you would adventure. Just ask Disney: after nots. We may well be witnessing the never know that they had learned any- painstakingly replicating the botany emergence of three classes of land- thing about whales. The exhibit fea- and zoology of the African savannah at scape experience: the affluent will tures whale behavior as a form of Animal Kingdom, they drag you make their eco-tours to the remaining acrobatics without explaining its func- across the place in pursuit of some fic- fragments of pristine habitat; the mid- tion in the wild. One of the most spec- tional poacher. dle classes will visit simulations; every- tacular moments of the show, for More complex is the issue of touch- one else will inhabit marginal example, occurs when the whales ing and feeding wild animals, as is per- landscapes, salvaging and recycling to launch themselves out of the water and mitted with dolphins at Key West survive. slide at great speed across a platform. World. Allowing people to develop I will conclude with two questions. What you are not told is that this is a psychological bonds with animals per- Should we resist the commodification predatory behavior whose purpose is haps encourages an emotional com- of nature in the commercial environ- to capture seals. Presumably the mes- mitment to the preservation of other ment? And if so, how? It will be appar- sage of one lovable sea creature con- species. Meeting animals on a middle ent by now that I think we should, for suming another is deemed too “negative” for the entertainment in- If we can satisfy our urge to experience fragile ecosystems by dustry. visiting a simulation, we do less damage to the real thing. On I have mixed feelings about nature as presented in places like Sea World. the other hand, if we can manufacture a really convincing and To the extent that the Sea World expe- entertaining fake, who will care about the original? rience imparts information, I applaud blisher it. But the balance generally tips to- ground somewhere between a civilized many reasons. The commercial land- ward a lowest-common-denominator and a wild place might even be benefi- scape is implicated in some of the most kind of entertainment, as in a “ride” cial to the preservation of native habi- unsettling trends in contemporary cul- called Polar Expedition, which in- tats. The kinds of simulations ture: the growing gulf between rich volves taking a seat for a simulated encountered in places like Sea World and poor, and hardening patterns of flight, shaking around a lot, and pre- might even be demographically in- social and economic segregation; the tending to land somewhere in the Arc- evitable. As the global population tendency to identify people as target tic. Leaving the flight simulator, you grows and as ecosystems become more groups of consumers rather than as enter a dark, icy landscape at a sup- fragmented and imperiled, perhaps the citizens; the transfer of economic re- posed polar research station, with best we can do is to leave these places sources from the city to the suburb; tanks containing walrus, narwhal, and alone. If we can satisfy our urge to ex- and the privatization of communal polar bears. Underlying Polar Expedi- perience fragile ecosystems by visiting space and the corresponding devalua- tion in particular and the Sea World a simulation, we do less damage to the tion of urban public areas as the locus experience in general seems to be the real thing. On the other hand, if we of civic life. The commercial land- assumption that the animals are not can manufacture a really convincing scape dishes up an ever-changing sufficiently compelling on their own, and entertaining fake, who will care menu of amusing diversions that hides that some feeble narrative—or some about the original? Let the real coral the real terms of our relationship to copyrighted name—has to be fash- reefs die—they will live on as a simula- the global environment. In the theme ioned to make them amusing. tion, courtesy of Anheuser-Busch or park and the local mall, consumption Like UnderWater World, Sea Rainforest Café. has no consequences. The commercial World is, finally, neither very enter- One more problem must be raised: landscape promotes the misleading taining nor very educational. Both whether for consumption, education, notions that we can conserve and con- represent the burgeoning “infotain- or entertainment, commodified nature sume at once and that our transactions ment” industry, which attempts to is only for the affluent. Entrance to with nature can invariably be safe, combine the features of an amusement Sea World costs $39.95; neither food agreeable, and problem-free. park with the educational mission of nor merchandise at the Rainforest Maybe I’m hopelessly reactionary, the nonprofit zoo, aquarium, or natu- Café is inexpensive. The poor have a out of touch with cultural imperatives. ral history museum. But the bottom different relationship to landscape, Maybe the simulated, commodified line is that these are for-profit entities, one governed by scarcity and recy- nature sold to us in the mall and the and education will always take second cling. Salvage, not consumption, is a theme park is the nature we want. Per- place to money. A detailed presenta- conspicuous feature of low-income haps we’d rather live in the realm of tion of wildlife ecology and a reasoned culture. Infotainment landscapes are reproductions, inhabiting a simu-

discussion of environmental problems another index of the large and growing lacrum of nature instead of what I still of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

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want to call the real world. Perhaps furnishings and returning them for re- the Virginia Tourism Corporation, conveyed to the commitment to biodiversity and to cycling when we are finished with me in September 1999 by Michelle LaBarbara, the cultivation of healthy, unpre- them, instead of consigning them to Director of Marketing for Potomac Mills. dictable, dynamic, and (dare I say?) the trash heap. 3. For a more sustained analysis of shopping for beautiful landscapes is merely nostal- Whether change comes from pro- nature, see Jennifer Price, “Looking for Nature gic, rendered obsolete as we remake ducers or consumers, we need to make at the Mall: A Field Guide to the Nature Com- nature entirely in our own image. room in the spaces of the theme park pany,” in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Simulated nature is certainly a lot less and the shopping mall for some alter- Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: complex and troublesome than the native narratives and for some dissent Norton, 1995), 186-202. real thing, and our appetite for it now from the ideology of consumption. We 4. Margaret Crawford discusses the principle of appears boundless. The sheer popular- need to integrate better our natural adjacent attraction in “The World in a Shop- ity of simulations demands that we ac- and social economies; that is, we need ping Mall,” 14; Richard Sennett in The Fall of knowledge, even respect, their cultural to be able to see the connections be- Public Man (New York: Vintage, 1976), 144- importance. Yet I wonder: are we, as tween the landscapes of production 145. consumers, being given what we really and consumption—to understand the 5. Quotations from Steven Schussler are from a want in these commercial landscapes, environmental and human costs of telephone interview, January 13, 1997. or are we being sold a bill of phony waste. We need to hold out for healthy 6. For more on the idea of the simulacrum, see goods? Commodity producers don’t ecosystems in the city and the suburbs; Jean Baudrillard, “The Precession of Simu- just make products; they manufacture we need to insist that culture—howev- lacra” in Simulacra and Simulation, 1-42. the desire for them. Consumers are er much it might flirt with simula- 7. Outreach expenditure figures are from Jean never completely passive, but nor are tion—retain a focus on the real world, Golden, Director of Public Relations for Rain- they (we) immune to the seductive its genuine problems and possibilities. forest Café, Inc. blisher powers of marketing. In the absence of At the mall or the theme park, what 8. William Booth, “Triumph of the Fake,” now-constant advertising, perhaps does this mean? Can we imagine a mall Washington Post, April 14, 1996, A1, 20. For a consumers would not be as attached to that is also a working landscape—that more sustained analysis of Sea World, see Susan commodified nature as its producers is energy self-sufficient, that treats its G. Davis, Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture would like to believe. own wastewater, and that recycles its and the Sea World Experience (Berkeley: Univer- It is hard to know how to resist. own materials? Can we imagine a sity of California Press, 1997). Only the eco-warriors will opt out theme park that is genuinely fun and 9. William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilder- completely; the rest of us are unlikely truly educational and environmentally ness,” in Uncommon Ground, 81. to want to make do with much less responsible all at once? I don’t see why than we currently consume. Yet I’d not. We have created the “nature” we like to imagine the emergence of a buy and sell in the marketplace; we John Beardsley is a writer and curator who populist environmental politics, a should certainly be able to change it. teaches at the Harvard Design School; his broad-based challenge to the culture books include Earthworks and Beyond: of consumption. A certain amount of Notes Contemporary Art in the Landscape. organized consumer resistance might 1. Literature on commercialization and simula- inspire commodity producers to refor- tion in the public environment includes Jean mulate their representations of nature, Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. helping us to imagine, as environmen- Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of tal historian William Cronon puts it, Michigan Press, 1994); Margaret Crawford, “what an ethical, sustainable, honorable “The World in a Shopping Mall,” in Michael human place in nature might actually Sorkin, ed., Variations on a Theme Park (New look like.”9 I’d also like to imagine en- York: Hill and Wang, 1992); Joan Didion, The lightened action on the part of corpo- White Album (New York: Simon and Schuster, rations that inhabit the spaces of malls 1979); Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, and theme parks. A few are beginning trans. William Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt, to recognize the economic and public 1986); Ada Louise Huxtable, The Unreal Ameri- relations benefits of increased recy- ca (New York: The New Press, 1997); and cling and diminished resource con- Alexander Wilson, The Culture of Nature (Cam- sumption, but changes in patterns of bridge: Blackwell, 1992). production and consumption have 2. Visitation figures for the Mall of America are been few and largely symbolic. We’re from the 1997-1998 “Destination Planning a long way from leasing such things as Guide” provided by the public relations office

appliances, automobiles, and home at the Mall of America; for Potomac Mills, from of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu

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