{"id":91317,"date":"2009-11-18T22:18:41","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T03:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2009\/11\/19\/america%e2%80%99s-mecca-the-mall-of-america\/"},"modified":"2009-11-18T22:18:41","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T03:18:41","slug":"america%e2%80%99s-mecca-the-mall-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/91317","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s Mecca: the Mall of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The only thing I could easily find in the whole place — with a \u201cMade in the USA\u201d label — was underwear. <\/span>What I didn\u2019t expect to find, was a mall heated by the sun (and body heat).<\/p>\n

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Forget the \u201cconservative right\u201d or \u201cliberal left.\u201d <\/span>If America has a religion, it\u2019s that of the consumption culture that has become the centerpiece for our economy. <\/span>Now 70 percent of our GNP is based on its citizens purchasing stuff, on credit cards or otherwise.<\/p>\n

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This religion of consumption has its Mecca, too, called the Mall of America. <\/span>A concept designed and constructed by the Triple Five Group — a privately held corporation owned by the Ghermezian brothers of Canada — Mall of America<\/a> attracts more than 42 million visitors a year with their retail stores, restaurants, Nickelodeon Universe amusement park and Underwater Adventures Aquarium. <\/span>While Mall of America is the most visited mall in the world, Triple Five Group also owns the biggest shopping mall in North America, the West Edmonton Mall.<\/p>\n

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Just for fun, I set out to find something that was made in America (and, ideally, without negatively impacting the environment). <\/span>No, I didn\u2019t think this was an insane goose chase. <\/span>After all, more and more ecopreneurs I write about in ECOpreneuring<\/a> are seeking to sell their \u201cgreen products\u201d through more conventional retail outlets \u2013 even big box stores and chains. That\u2019s why Seventh Generation toilet paper can be now found at your local supermarket and nearly everyone, it seems, sells compact fluorescent bulbs these days. Perhaps one or two products might be here, in America\u2019s megamall composed of 520 stores and 50 restaurants \u2013 housed under 4.2 million square feet of enclosed roof space. <\/span>My odds should be good.<\/p>\n

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Read more of this story »<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The only thing I could easily find in the whole place — with a \u201cMade in the USA\u201d label — was underwear. What I didn\u2019t expect to find, was a mall heated by the sun (and body heat). Forget the \u201cconservative right\u201d or \u201cliberal left.\u201d If America has a religion, it\u2019s that of the consumption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}