Hairballs

The Rise and Rise of the Modern Shopping Centre

Sites are cleared, foundations laid, great iron frameworks constructed and glazed; individuals swept aside as the multiples move in: department stores, superstores, mega stores, chain stores, in shapes like their own selves hideously multiplied; tailor made (entirely the wrong metaphor) to suit a model community mapped, measured and classified; a community first homogenised, then analysed, then re-divided; divided into 'affinity groups with similar demographic and lifestyle attributes' (a modern cousin of the stereotype); divided by age, sex, race, social class, disposable income, dietary habits, but never divided into parts so small as to once again become unwieldy individuals. The 'buyer behaviour' of each group is monitored-stroke-manipulated by corporate ladies and gentlemen - alike as so many peas in a pod - trained to identify-stroke-create 'market trends' and reason inductively therefrom (what's sauce for the goose is sauce for a whole gaggle of ganders). Such a trend having been identified-stroke-created the machinery of emulation and replication is set in motion and makes this noise: sameness and repetition, sameness and repetition; widespread distribution, vigorous promotion, shelves are stacked and garment rails hung with whichever cut, colour, style, model or name (particularly the name) will, for a very limited period, be the raison'd'etre of the Jones's and their infuriatingly imitative neighbours.

Here, today, Saturday, a substantial percentage of the fifty-thousand-plus 'profiled population' - predominantly white, both genders, all age groups, with a mean disposable income considerably lower than the national average and a standardised mortality rate considerably higher (owing, no doubt, to high fat, low food convenience diets, cigarettes and alcohol) - from the twenty-four-thousand-two-hundred-and-forty-three...forty-four...forty-five...households, covering a 'designated market area' of some ten square miles and beyond, were, by exhibiting an extensive range of 'purchase behaviour characteristics', fulfilling 'predicted market potential' and contributing to a success story that will, in the form of statistical data collected and collated, make for pleasant reading back at head office. And as success, like land, must be built upon, databases are surveyed, comparable locations selected 'off the peg', geo-demographical analyses made; sites are cleared, foundations laid, great iron frameworks constructed and glazed...

Taken from the novel Debaser