Metropolis at Metrotown - The Next Downtown for Vancouver

Thesis satement

As the commercial landscape, the shopping mall has developed rapidly since the globalization and economic growth in past decades; it is not only just a landscape for people to shop in but has a significant influence on its surrounding. Shopping mall provides people with job opportunities and investment back into the community. In addition, the mall has attracted transportation like Skytrain and facilities like parks and community centers to build around, which enhance the quality of people's life.

Introduction

Have you ever shopped at Metropolis at Metrotown? Did you go every day, week or month? What's the first thing you would think of if you heard about Metropolis mall? With more than two hundred shopping centers existing in Vancouver, Metropolis at Metrotown, located in Burnaby city, is the largest shopping mall and a significant commercial landscape that represent our Metropolis area. The shopping mall includes hundreds of fashion boutiques with cinemas and dining outlets spread over three floors. Although the mall has been through a transition period over the past decade to be more, not just a shopping center, the focus has "become on creating sustainable and dynamic experiential settings that engage and excite the communities it serves – and the pandemic has acted as a major accelerant on those trends,” said Greg Maloney, CEO. (Campbell, 2021). In addition, the long-term redevelopment plan for Metropolis at Metrotown mall has begun recently, which aims to become a new downtown core of the Burnaby Metrotown area. The redevelopment will have a further influence on the community and the people living around it (Chan, 2019).  Everyone has their own cognitive space on Metropolis at Metrotown. Some can view the mall as a shopping place, entertainment or maybe a symbol for their community. However, one thing we cannot deny is that Metrotown mall is now becoming an influencer for people here.

Inteiror Layout

Metropolis Metrotown's interior has changed a lot since initially opened in 1986. The mall can now be separated into four areas: Lower left, Upper left, Core/centre, and right/Hudson Bay in both the upper and lower levels of the Malls. Throughout the years, since population, culture and economics changed, stores have changed a lot and are constantly changing even now. Many stores have become a memory for our nostalgia, like the Rainforest Cafe or Sears.

Mostly each side of the area has large retail stores like Walmart, superstore or TNT. Because people have different habits and needs on shopping for groceries, it provides people with various options. In addition, each retail store is close to parking space, and people do not need to spend much time walking. The core/center area has the most well-famous stores because the site has many large areas stores. Companies like Apple, Aritzia, and UNIQLO opened a store in this area (Rivett, 2022).

Because of the globalization trend in which companies try to expand their brand worldwide and the culture-diversified in Metrotown area, where all kinds of races can be seen. Metropolis at Metrotown has become the most popular mall for firms to select if they plan to expand into Vancouver's market.

For example: UNIQLO continued about their expansion on the store's upper level this year by absorbing the adjacent Microsoft store area (Korstrom, 2017).

"Vancouver, from my perspective, is a welcoming gate for the Asian people. This is where a multi-culture background is celebrated, and a diversity of lifestyle is being witnessed.” - Uniqlo CEO and chairman Tadashi Yanai

Shopping Mall Influence People's Living, Housing and Behaviour

In recent years, Metrotown has brought economic development not only for itself but also for its surrounding environments. More and more tall glassing apartments have been rapidly built around the shopping mall. With the redevelopment plan approved and the first phase is on progress, there will be three more tall towers in the near future and more when all phases are complete (Chan, 2022.)

In the space dimension, the mall exerted a significantly positive effect on the housing prices of nearby blocks. With the increase in distance from the mall, the positive effect decreased. (Zhang et al., 2018). Because of the insane price increase in houses around Metropolis mall in recent years, the demographic in terms of income level living near the mall has changed. The average household significantly increased from 1996 to 2006 (Vujevic, 2009). Now, the first stage of the downtown master plan is launching, and housing prices in the future will continue to rise.

The excellent development of Metropolis at Metrotown not only brings positive effects but can also cause some negative effects on human behaviours. As the income level and economic development increase because of the mall, criminal activities also rise simultaneously. The closer to the mall, the more crime happens (Song et al., 2015).

Impact to Surrounding Environment

There have been several notable major developments since Metropolis at Metrotown opened. The big mall has attracted facilities to be built nearby, thus giving the community better living standards, development and environment.

The transportation system has always been one of the Metropolis mall's locations advantages with having both Skytrain and main bus station. The Skytrain provides spatial interaction for people living in both urban and suburban shopping trip to the mall and also provide better convenience for people living near Metropolis mall. As people now tend to use transit for social events, to visit and hang out with friends, to attend concerts and participate in other late-night activities. (Thomas, 2007).

One particular to mention is The Crystal mall which is a combination of retail and restaurant mall (mainly Chinese and Asian food), offices, a full-service Hilton Hotel with major conference facilities, two apartment buildings, an urban church, and a community police station. In B.C., there were 299,860 people, or 8.8 percent of the total population, were of the Chinese minority in 1996 (Nan, 1999). The percentage has significantly increased now in 2022 to 11.84% (Canada Population, 2022). The mall fits perfectly to fulfill the needs of rapid growth in the Chinese community living in B.C., especially in the Metrotown area. Lots of Chinese restaurants also choose to open around the mall to attract both Chinese migrants and visitors.

Other facilities build that also helped to shape the communities

Conclusion

Metropolis at Metrotown is now more than a commercial landscape but is an influencer who tries to shape the culture of accepting different races and the nearby communities' development and is in the process of becoming the downtown of Burnaby in the future. It creates economics for the city by providing job opportunities, purchasing or selling activities or even appeal foreign companies to invest capital in opening stores. Metrotown also often invests the cash inflow back to the surrounding community centers or facilities development. Thanks to globalization, the shopping mall includes different types of stores with different cultural traits, which perfectly fits this culture-diversified city. The rapid growth in economic development around Metrotown mall has caused an increase in housing prices; however, it also means that the high-level income population has become the main demographic structure living nearby. But, the downside is that criminal activities also rise as closer to the shopping mall. Many facilities are built around the shopping mall because of Metrotown mall's high potential economic development. Therefore, this StoryMap, through three different geographic elements, displays the Human Geography of how the Metrotown shopping mall has been impacted by globalization and influences human behaviour and community development.

References:

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