Would a mall walkers’ club work in sunny South Africa?
It might depend on which city you live in…
It’s 7am on a Tuesday morning. Granny and Gramps from Coral Gables in suburban Miami have donned their sneakers (tackies in this neck of the woods), and have made their way to the local mall to meet with other retirees. Miami is, after all, the sixth borough of New York, after Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island. In the move from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt in the golden years a la the Golden Girls, many a New Yorker has made Florida home.
The aim? A brisk walk through the centre for an hour or so to get their heart rates up and do some exercise. The social banter amidst the flailing arms and legs might revolve around the newest in denture technology, heart valves, grandkids and the tensile strength of the latest titanium replacement part. This is followed by a sensible breakfast (go easy on the bacon) and a cup of coffee. It makes a welcome change to aqua aerobics. In some cases, they may not even be retirees — though the Tuesday 7am deal suggests that they are either stay-at-home moms, or they run their own businesses, so they can afford the luxury of setting their own hours.
The shopping centre is essentially a North American concept that gained massive traction in SA starting in the 1960s, so why hasn’t there been a proliferation of mall walking clubs locally? The question presents an interesting dichotomy, and therein lies the dilemma: SA is an outdoors society for the most part. The braaivleis, rugby (or soccer or cricket) and sunny skies make that possible. The same is true of SA’s size: at over 1.2 million km2, the country is the 24th-largest in the world, and has the space to accommodate the outdoorsy nature of it all. But that is also the case in the US. Alaska, the largest state in the union, is bigger than SA, while Texas and California put together would be almost as big. So why do walkers’ clubs work in America but not here? Surely the thought has crossed the mind of some astute person in a marketing department at a local shopping centre.
Perhaps part of the reason has to do with geography. West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is in one of the coldest climes known to man. Similarly, Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is equally icy in winter. Here, walking the mall is not just practical, it’s a matter of survival. Nobody would dare brave the cold as part of a walking club — in an Arctic blizzard, the chances of making it out alive are very limited. Besides, thermal underwear tends to chafe when walking at 7km/h in the snow — if that’s even possible. So up north in the Snow Belt, mall walkers can squeeze into Spandex and leggings with a sloppy T-shirt like it’s 25oC, and take advantage of the centre’s central heating units. In the wide open spaces of Texas, it becomes a choice of whether to mall walk or not. Perhaps that is when culture kicks in, and stereotypically like burgers and shakes and fries, the mall becomes the comfort zone where people get together. Of course such an assessment is hardly fair, let alone impartial: not all Americans espouse the drive-thru society.
But in the good old RS of A (not the US of A), here comes the second part of that dichotomous dilemma: the allure of the great outdoors has to be juxtaposed against the question of safety and security, which is a real concern locally. After all, no one walking the mall is going to be hit by some inebriated maniac in his out-of-control car that comes careering down the road. The likelihood of being held up at knifepoint by opportunistic criminals while enjoying an afternoon walk in a mall is very slim. And in a medical emergency, the mall is the quickest place to get help from a doctor or a paramedic. Other advantages listed by Very Well Fit include easy access to toilets and sources of drinking water, cafés and snack bars, the camaraderie of walking with others in a social setting, the lack of exhaust fumes and air pollution which is better for health, and the ability to go at any pace without the worry of being left behind — as long as the walker does his/her prerequisite 150 minutes per week to ward off lifestyle diseases, then a slower pace is still acceptable, as long as it’s not glacial.
Some urban sociologists in the mould of Saskia Sassen have pontificated that the mall is a sterling example of “siege architecture.” Johannesburg is particularly full of it, note some geographers. High walls, gated communities and insular shopping centres with boomed-off parking are all symptoms of the need to protect and secure, reminiscent of the city of old with its high walls and single entrance, designed to defend the city in the event of an attack. An Arthurian Camelot springs to mind. But the Great Smoke (that would be Jozi) is not alone in the world. Comparisons have often been drawn between SA and Brazil, first as part of the BRICS grouping, and then as part of the emerging economies. Like Brazil, SA teeters on the brink of junk status (and by some accounts has fallen off the edge), and displays a similar disparate society between the “haves” and the “have nots.” Two authors agree. An academic paper delivered at the HSRC suggests that in environments where the gap between these “haves” and the “have nots” grows, urban areas exhibit specific design motifs that increasingly reflect “siege architecture,” in the form of enclosed shopping centres and security estates which provide safe experiences. Further comparisons are drawn specifically between Johannesburg and São Paulo, which have a lot in common: both are the largest cities in their countries; both are the economic and financial capitals of their countries; both were built on the back of commodities (gold in Johannesburg; coffee in São Paulo); and both have high crime rates, reflective of their coveted status as magnets for money seekers. This is a finding confirmed by another two authors who delivered a paper at the Free University of Berlin, who state that in São Paulo shopping centres are the main form of entertainment for middle class people too afraid to go to open areas or any other area that they perceive is not safe for them.
Aside from the safety and convenience considerations, there is also the long-emerging trend of shopping centres becoming ever-more experiential — especially if they want to remain relevant in a society where the first batch of Millennials is about to turn 40. Shopping centres have become spaces to hang out in and imbibe experiences, so in theory mall walking clubs should be on the rise, n’est pas? Much has been written about the worldwide emphasis on “the shopping experience,” where intriguing environments are used as leverage in order to differentiate from competitors — and ward off the digital threat. Suggestions that have come to the fore include ideas such as clockwise or anti-clockwise flow through a shopping centre (which is affected by whether the country drives on the left- or right-hand side of the road), handing the function of beautifying “barren and discreet” public toilets over to shops that sell soaps and other bath products, making sure that aisles are wide enough for baby strollers, and creating ambience in “bare-bones” wardrobe changing rooms, where some of the most important buying decisions are made — all efforts to romanticise the mall experience.
It’s something that the Americans do with their usual aplomb. While most are in agreement that mall walkers will not make a huge dent in the bottom line, they view their presence as part of a community service that does indeed help with romancing the mall. At Mall of America, mall walkers are pedestalled onto the coveted status podium and have even been given a name: MOA Mall Stars. They have a card that tracks the amount of time they have spent in the centre walking and the number of calories burned, they get discounts and rebates on certain items and at some eateries, and they even have a monthly get-together where a professional speaker is brought in over a breakfast meet to discuss nutrition and health. In other centres, mall walkers get their parking comped, signage has been erected to show them how far they have walked, and they are blessed with a range of other benefits that the normal shoppers don’t see. In SA, would this be enough to compete with Run Walk for Life and Park Run? The latter is a global organisation with a huge presence in the US, and is often viewed as complementary to walking clubs as opposed to being competitive.
Perhaps the lack of mall walking clubs has more to do with demography than either geography or security. The US has a significant population of ageing Boomers (around 75 million), who have the means to get to the mall and join a walking club. By comparison, SA is a young society, with almost half the population under 25. The youth don’t need exercise — they metabolise burgers and shakes in a heartbeat. And if that is the case, then maybe mall walking clubs will become a feature of SA centres in the future. Certainly, in the move towards being green and clean, and the importance of healthy living, mall walking clubs could be the saviour of the marketing strategy. Perhaps there is a centre that will try them once this article gets published.
Sources: University of Washington Health Promotion Research Center, Very Well Fit, Raiser & Volkman (Free University of Berlin), Murray (HSRC), Higgs (Top Retail Survey), Blackwell, Miniard & Engel (Consumer Behavior), Time, Georgia Perry (The Atlantic), The Washington Post, Stats SA
