Liverpool ONE or Is Materialism Replacing the Arts?
What is Liverpool ONE? Good question. I could go on about what I think it is… actually I will but a little later on.
Some of you may have heard of it. Liverpool ONE is a massive shopping district, still under development I believe. Some of it has opened to the public. The stats are impressive of course, 3000 parking spaces, 42 acres of shopping space, four storey department stores etc etc. It’s a shopping experience in other words. Moreover, other cities in England are following suit by building massive shopping complexes as well. Part of the problem for some people with these things is that a portion of the city centre becomes privately owned. These shopping centres are private and shop owners have to rent out space from some rich corporation.
Shopping is good for the economy, we all know that. But someone has to ask: how can this constant need to shop can be sustained? Here’s what I think (I told you it was coming): the British economy has turned from, or is turning from, production to service. That’s probably obvious to anyone with half a brain, and I hope that’s the kind of person that reads my blog. I do think though, that service economies don’t have much of a future. It seems to be a temporary solution to the problem of innovation stagnation and market saturation. The individuals who try and push these shopping complexes are seizing the moment and making a huge profit on the plateauing of the economy. These real estate magnates know the economy is slowing down so they’re going to attempt to take as much as they can and when the profits stop they’re going to sell out. The city and small businesses, as well as consumers, are the ones that lose out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradise_Project
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/image_galleries/john_lewis_gallery.shtml?1
So this brings me to my second point. Has materialism and consumerism replaced the arts? It seems that by erecting and allowing the erection of these complexes cities and citizens have allowed consumer values to overtake artistic ones. Just think about the location of Liverpool ONE; the city centre. Admittedly, I haven’t been to Liverpool to see this thing myself but the centre of town has been, throughout history, the place for arts, administration, and religion. To be sure every medieval town had some form of sales in the downtown but more often than not stores were kept to certain quarters of the city and markets were held in large wide open areas.
With Liverpool ONE and all of it’s supposed offshoots in other British cities it seems that shopping is taking over as the centre of the town, and metaphorically, life. I’m not quite sure if such a thing is happening in Canada yet, I haven’t bothered to do any careful study of the facts, and I’m not making any judgments about England because I know even less about that country. What I am asking is has materialism taken over the finer things in life like art and culture? It seems there are more stores than theaters/galleries opening at any one time.
Reading an article on BBC just surprised me that’s all.