please empty your brain below
HK's newest, shiniest mall is Elements and is owned by the MTR corporation, the state-subsidised local equivalent of the London Underground. Maybe TfL should get in on this retail and property development lark.
It took me about an hour to walk around the new “Temple of mammon” These shopping malls are of no interest to me, apart from a once only look over just to say I've been. They seem to be full of jewellery and ladies clothing retailers. The eating-places are all expensive.
I went out side and headed for a favourite haunt of mine, an old style cafe with “English food served here” displayed in the window, situated on the Goldhawk Road. A café I have been going to for about 40 years. It’s not far another old style café, in the same road but on the other side, Cooks pie and mash!.
Lets hope these old places remain as the gentrification of Shepherds Bush extends.
Oh no, not flares again!
It seems to me the people who like this sort of thing most are those with least money. Buy now pay later...
I wonder what it will look like in 10 years time? In need of revamping I'd guess.
The 'Mayor of London' should be have spent his time explaining to the 'local' traders why he is supporting exporting the profits out of London..
@Tom.. so it's the future is it? Just like we were told that deregulating the economy was the future.. Oh I see..
Plastic shopping.. in a plastic environment..
Hang on, is that an iceberg up ahead..?
It does seem ironic though how Westfield, planned during an economic boom, has opened in the midst of the credit crunch and one of the worst financial crises in decades.
I'm afraid I gave up after a short wander because there is virtually no signage at all and they had run out of maps. Surely it is reasonably foreseeable that hoardes of people will turn up on opening day and will ask for a map? If the centre owners can't be bothered to offer signage and a map then I can't be bothered to wander round their centre aimlessly.
Like you, much of the "retail offer" does not appeal to me so I won't be returning very quickly. I did buy a few bits and bobs in Waitrose but I normally shop with them anyway but on the other side of London.
It also struck me that much of the transport infrastructure had simply been shoehorned in to the space available. If there is real growth in demand then these stations may struggle in future years as they are hemmed in on all sides.
PC
As these cathedrals to consumerism go, I'd have to say it was pretty impressive.
Being more from the lost tribes of Lamorbey and Shirley territories, I guess you'd say that Bluewater and The Glades at Bromley are more my stamping ground, and it'd be unfair and untrue to say I have any disdain towards them: quite the opposite, in fact - I'd have to say they're good places to go.
Therefore, although I'm little more than a casual observer when it comes to, Westfield, I can't say I have any 'problems' with the place.
Actually, I find it interesting to note how some people saying the building doesn't seem suited to the local environment and its people.
Hmmm.
Of late I've been spending a fair bit of time around my birthplace of Woolwich, gobsmacked by the way the area is changing. There's been massive investment in creating fresh housing in the brownfield Royal Arsenal site, plus further building along the river front and a real geuine effort to improve the area and make it look attractive.
Some of the efforts, however, seem destined to failure. You plant saplings and they get broken down within a month.
Which kind of raises an inevitable thought. Namely a reversal of the theory above. Ummm. That maybe it's the people that aren't suited to the buildings
I bet ours is nice. More compact.
And I could've sworn the white hallway photo was taken from there.
Malls. Urgh.
Most of the things I used to do on Shepherd's Bush Green, I'd still be doing on the Green anyway if I were still there (buying a paper or a pint of milk, topping up my Oyster) cos it would take ages to walk into Westfield to do those little things. Shepherd's Bush was never a major shopping environment and the shops there serve a completely different market to Westfield.
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