OPINION & ANALYSIS 1 ONLINE COMMENT Pall over malls puts theherald.com.au Offroader debate A rally against the National Parks and Wildlife’s decision to ban four-wheel drives from planners on notice Stockton Beach attracted thousands of people. The story also attracted much heated The things department stores sell debate among our online are purchased easily on-line. So too readers. Phillip are clothes, shoes, jewellery, O’Neill cosmetics, travel, electronic goods, Do these people have no audio-visual products, sporting consideration for the goods and the like, the things that environmental health of Stockton NON-LIVING things die too, as stores in the malls specialise in. beach as well as other beaches Hunter residents know all too well. Fifth, Australians have taken on a like Redhead which are suffering Death has come to a steelworks, a cafe´ culture where they like their as a result of vehicles on them? shipyard, rail lines, town centres, coffee, snacks and casual dining to Archie churches, underground coal mines, take place in funky settings, often wool stores, department stores, with open air seating, and typically If only that many turned up on bookshops, licensed clubs, bank with interesting surrounds. cleanup Australia Day. branches, corner stores, a brewery, Try as it might, a Gruen-style mall Catdoglioncow textiles and clothing mills, can’t shed its introverted, stuck-in-a- aluminium smelters and post concrete box reality. A rally? Seriously guys, relax. Let offices. Some say that the malls can fight the place regenerate. Soon we might add shopping malls back. One strategy is called multi- SmallFeller to the list. The Hunter’s malls have channel retailing. This means that a led a blessed life. But every life person visits a store for a shopping Stockton dunes are fragile and ends, eventually. experience, and receives suitable for passive recreation. The modern mall can be traced to customised advice in the midst of Having thousands of big angry- the out-of-town mall built in the quality, hands-on displays. The looking 4WDs in a convoy is not early 1950s at Edina, in the US shopper and the store attendant the way to convince people that it midwest state of Minnesota. interact with smart phones and should be opened up for 4WDs. It was designed by Victor Gruen. tablets and touch screens. The Fatdave Shopping malls ever since have person goes home and continues the retained Gruen’s ideas. They are event online. Purchases are home Mother Nature does far more fully enclosed, air-conditioned, delivered and the person becomes a damage than any 4WD will ever anchored by department stores, loyal shopper, converted to using do. The rally is for all closures contain plentiful pedestrian space, NUMBERED: Westfield Kotara after Boxing Day. Picture: Jonathan Carroll multiple ’’channels’’ to do the Australia-wide that responsible are surrounded by vast parking shopping. 4WDers face every week. We take areas, and are managed by a single fear death? There are five reasons. petrol stations and super-sized Yet wouldn’t multi-channel our children out to camp, 4WD and proprietor. First, when the pulling power of hardware stores. retailing mean fewer stores, but enjoy this great land that is ours. It For the last six decades, shopping department stores, the malls’ anchor Mall operators have become more design-intense stores in doesn’t just belong to the people malls have been the places where tenants, starts to fall, the specialty envious spectators as Woolworths distinctive locations, not necessarily that sit at home on their computer. modern families have filled their shops between the car parks and the and Coles (Wesfarmers) re-shape inside a mall? TuffGQ homes, wardrobes, Christmas department stores get fewer Australia’s retailing landscape. Of course, the timing of death is stockings, refrigerators and pantry customers. Third, bulky good retailing sites mostly uncertain, and I’m sure there People in this state are fed up with cupboards. Can David Jones at Kotara and are springing up everywhere. All are profitable years ahead for the being locked out of the bush, and But now the shopping mall is Myer at Charlestown reproduce around the lower Hunter old and malls. of public land by the NPWS. threatened. their pulling power for much new industrial areas host But maybe not for decades. And Enough is enough. It is estimated that 20 per cent of longer? homemakers centres, office then what? What might become of Brendan America’s shopping malls are dead Second, our oligopolistic suppliers, DIY building materials, the dead malls? with at least another 20 per cent in supermarket chains, Woolworths nurseries, gyms, childcare centres, As much fun as it is to think of What those people don’t serious decline. and Coles, are flexing their retail even churches and medical centres, other uses for our malls, we should understand is that Stockton Death among Australia’s muscle. They want the best locations and, of course, fast food outlets. be asking our urban planners what beach, including Aboriginal sights, suburban shopping malls is rare, so in the malls, right near the car parks. Moreover, new international they are doing to shape our rapidly are part of the tourist industries. It far. Population growth and sprawl in And they want room for expansion. grocery retailers, like Aldi and changing retailing landscape. is part of our land, our country and our cities have kept shopping malls Woolworths and Coles are also Costco, are happy to site their stores Or are they content to let the retail our hearts. As a keen 4WDer full of shoppers, and the Hunter’s asserting their locational in industrial areas along main roads oligopolists and property developers myself, I know to take all that in malls are typical. Both Westfield independence. They are expanding where there is plenty of expansion decide for us? consideration when I go driving. Kotara and Charlestown Square the number and size of stand-alone space and where rents are lower. Pieter Bezuidenhout each recorded nearly 9 million supermarkets. Fourth, after a slow start, on-line pedestrians across their floors in And they are expanding into other retailing is growing rapidly. The Phillip O’Neill is a professor of Who were they protesting against? 2009. retail segments on stand-alone sites market segments where malls are economic geography at the God? For sending the storms that Why then should Hunter malls such as drive-through liquor barns, strongest are being hit hardest. University of Western Sydney. carved up Stockton Beach? Norm Talking about grief a better path to healing ONLINE poll Antidepressants are little The early chemical intervention There are people who would It is clear that adults who learnt to for people experiencing grief gives come to me because they were not give their wounded hearts a voice TODAY’S QUESTION more than a chemical them the message that their pain is coping. can become parents who can give abnormal, part of some mental They had been on antidepressants their children an ongoing Does Stockton beach Band-Aid in the treatment illness that needs to be treated. for many years but felt the need to opportunity to freely express need protection from of ‘‘depressed’’ patients, None were depressed, just explore long-suppressed painful emotions, not bury them. four-wheel-drivers? confused by the myriad diverse emotions, with the hope of Fear (anxiety, panic and terror) is YESTERDAY’S RESULT writes Steele Fitchett. feelings that are called grief. discovering emotional freedom. The a close relative of depression and They just needed someone safe chemotherapy was not working and can be explored in a similar Should the Star Hotel be who would listen and learn what it they hoped that, maybe, depression manner. saved from demolition? LAST week in the Newcastle Herald, was like in their grief experience. was not going to be their life I need to clarify where both fit YES, it’s a Newcastle icon Phillip Mitchell reviewed the use of As one elderly grieving lady said sentence. into the healing process. 58.8% antidepressants in the United to me as she left: ‘‘I’m relieved to It is important for people to be The wounded heart longs to have NO, it’s time to move on Kingdom and Australia. know that I’m not going mad.’’ aware of the issues involved in a voice. If the head has been taught 41.2% I feel that I can expand on the Antidepressants dampen all developing head-heart connections to put others first, then the heart’s experience of depression and its emotions. when coming off antidepressants. voice is silenced. management. One lady stopped her medication As the head finally begins to give Fear is then the heart’s response – During my work as a medical so that her libido could return. the wounded heart a voice over fearful that he or she will not be counsellor, I have observed the use My view is that for the majority of ensuing months, antidepressant heard. Depression is the heart’s of antidepressants by people those experiencing depression, it is medication can slowly be reduced realisation that he or she will never referred to me. secondary to the suppression of under medical supervision. be heard and it withdraws into a VOTE NOW It has been very common for these primary painful feelings, which There is a cure. It’s often a painful, dark place. people to arrive having been include anger, guilt, shame, difficult process, and at times a very The ultimate withdrawal is where prescribed antidepressant rejection and sadness. isolating one. But it will work in the heart gives up that anyone wants n ..