Mall Scene

The magnificent white walls of the commerce cathedral shine like a a beacon to the hungry masses yearning for the freedom of designer bargain buys, and act as a safe haven to all who risk life and limb in order to fully express their excitement when adorning themselves with all sorts of excessive accouterments or engorging themselves upon one of the offerings at the food court. Modern "car-friendly" strip malls developed from the 1920s, and shopping malls corresponded with the rise of suburban living in many parts of the Western World, especially the United States, after World War II. From early on, the design tended to be inward-facing, with malls following theories of how customers could best be enticed in a controlled environment. Similar, the concept of a mall having one or more "anchor" or "big box" stores was pioneered early, with individual stores or smaller-scale chain stores intended to benefit from the shoppers attracted by the big stores. The largest mall ever is South China Mall in Dongguan, China with gross floor area of 892,000 m2 (9,600,000 sq ft). The world's second-largest shopping mall is the Golden Resources Mall in Beijing, China with gross floor area of 680,000 m2 (7,300,000 sq ft). The SM City North EDSA in the Philippines, which opened in November 1985, is the world's third-largest at 460,000 m2 (5,000,000 sq ft) of gross floor area, and SM Mall of Asia in the Philippines, opened in May 2006, is the world's fourth largest at 386,000 m2 (4,150,000 sq ft) of gross floor area. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=117802