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Urban Policy and Research

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The Privatisation of Public Property: The Development of a Shopping Mall in Sydney and its Implications for Governance through Spatial Practices
Malcolm Voyce
a a

Macquarie University Published online: 06 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Malcolm Voyce (2003) The Privatisation of Public Property: The Development of a Shopping Mall in Sydney and its Implications for Governance through Spatial Practices, Urban Policy and Research, 21:3, 249-262, DOI: 10.1080/0811114032000113644 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0811114032000113644

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Urban Policy and Research, Vol. 21, No. 3, 249262, September 2003

The Privatisation of Public Property: the Development of a Shopping Mall in Sydney and its Implications for Governance through Spatial Practices

MALCOLM VOYCE
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Macquarie University. Email: malcolm.voyce@mq.edu.au

ABSTRACT This article examines the planning application and current operation of a new shopping mall in Sydney. I use this analysis to argue that the owners of the mall, Westeld, govern, through spatial practices, the physical space in the mall and the shopping practices of the people who enter the mall. By the term govern I mean the spatial practices by which Westeld controls the shopping area of the mall. I follow the idea of governance inspired by the governmentality literature to show that those connected with the mall are shaped by spatial practices which envisages subjects which are morally free and yet are shaped by shopping mall practices (Foucault, 1975, 1980). By these spatial practices, I argue, Westeld creates a certain ambience in the mall, which conveys the message that the mall is an attractive and safe location, which welcomes certain customers and excludes others. This collective impression of mall atmosphere, I argue acts as a spatial practice, which in effect governs the mall. One of the features of shopping malls is that public or civic space is replaced with semi-public space owned by developers. In this context the protection of private property has coalesced with the preservation of public order (Gray and Gray, 2000, p. 23). In shopping malls people considered disruptive to shopping are excluded and shops found in the high street such as pawnshops and second-hand bookshops are not granted a tenancy. Other unwelcome folk include the homeless and groups of teenagers. In this article I plan to analyse the spatial practices which restrict full public access to such places as the Hornsby shopping mall. Accordingly, I rstly show that the concept of property should rightly be seen as containing social ideas, secondly I discuss the nature of spatial practices, which materially and discursively lead to the exclusion of certain people and thirdly, describe notions of community which help dene who are proper mall entrants. Key Words: shopping malls, property, public space, governmentality, Foucault, governance, consumption, neoliberalism In the past Hornsby had a questionable community focal point Hornsby retail in general was fragmented Hornsby needed a town centre, a new retail and commercial heart, it needed to reinvent itself, it needed a master plan, cohesion of all its elements: downtown
08111146 Print/14767244 Online/03/030249-14 2003 Editorial Board, Urban Policy and Research DOI: 10.1080/0811114032000113644

250 M. Voyce needed to present itself as, and become, the community focal point. (Shopping Centre News, 19 May 2001, p. 18, my emphasis)1 Whenever we go shopping, how many times we either overheard others or heard ourselves saying to our partners, kids or even ourselves, Im just going to my butcher or hey theyve moved my newsagent. Most of us experience this every time we shop. It is a perfect example of how the public takes ownership of privately owned and operated spaces. In order for us to bring the shopping experience to the table of discussion of contextual renewal, we now embark on a process that aims to bring the various levels of authority and constituency into the fold as stake holders of the proposal. Why? Because they take gurative ownership at the end of the day. (Alvarez (Head of Westeld Design), 2001, pp. 217218, my emphasis) Property as a Legal and Social Idea Those who have power in society shape ideas of property. While property may be seen to represent legal ideas of ownership, alienation and exclusion, I argue property developers utilise not only the legal idea of property but also develop other discourses, which sit alongside legal notions. These ideas emanate from sources, which are unconnected to the formal sources of law (the courts, parliament). Some legal academics in order to overcome the problems of understanding the legal conception of property have looked at what we may call loosely as a social side of property. For instance Gray and Gray have described property as a socially approved power over a socially valued resource (Gray and Gray, 2000, p. 96; see also Voyce, 2002). I argue that it is time to separate legal notions of property from the various social ideas concerning property. I therefore propose to make a distinction between legal notions of property (such as ownership, alienation and exclusion) and property in the sense of a social idea. I call the former approach the narrow view of property and the latter the wider view of property. Readers familiar with the work of law and society scholars, such as Merry, may question this approach as law and society scholars argue that law and society are mutually dening and are therefore inseparable. They argue that law is intimately involved in the constitution of social relations and that the law is constituted through social relations (Merry, 1992, p. 209, her stress). This article presents a different perspective, in that I argue that, what I call propriety relationships (or prescriptive behaviour in relation to the mall) are shaped by ideas from neoliberalism and ideas concerning the centrality of the market. It is not my task to attempt to show the causal connection between market ideas and the law, but to follow what I perceive to be the spirit of Foucaults work, to show how from unruly shoppers perspective there may be a divergence (or convergence) of narrow and wider ideas of property. This approach enables me to examine more clearly the set of ideas emanating from socioeconomic ideas within neoliberalism which, I argue shape what I call propriety relationships and the form of prescriptive social ideas, which govern entry to the mall.

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Social ideas of property are important because the method and means of their deployment shapes a particular social environment. This study builds on the spatial turn in social theory, which associates social space with relations of power.2 I argue that the spatial areas, which we are familiar with, such as our homes, streets, ofces and malls, reect and reinforce relationships of power (Blomley, 1998, p. 569). These spatial practices assign meaning to lines and spaces in order to control the physical world. What is controlled, in effect, are the social relationships and experiences of people (Delaney, 1997, p. 6). I do not deny that the social spaces, that appear, for instance, in shopping malls, may be different to that intended by the owners. I admit to a reciprocal relationship between the produced spaces and the expression of some local social practice (Minca, 2001, p. 197). While I acknowledge resistance or agency by customers and tenants, my stress is on the degree of intentional control exercised by the mall owners. It appears that Westeld have achieved their intentions to date in Hornsby, to limit to the mall only those people who wish to avail themselves of the malls facilities as customers. Some studies have linked the construction of a specic identity to a place and have attempted to see this as a spatial practice (Miller, Jackson and Thrift et al., 1998, p. 7). For instance, Mort has described how a particular locality has been utilised to create a new gay consumer market (Mort, 1996; see also Forest, 1995). This study indicates how place is not a passive backdrop but is, as Moran and Skeggs write implicated with the production of security and insecurity, identity and community, which may intervene in the construction of difference (Moran and Skeggs, 2001, p. 387). I wish to show how the construction of a specic identity at a particular site of consumption acts as a spatial practice. Spatial practices govern social spaces in two ways. Firstly by material practices and secondly by spatial representations. I describe rstly what I mean by material practices by referring to the link between planning and social control. Material practices I argue are inherent in basic notions of property in the sense that owners have the right to physically exclude whom ever they wish from their property. At the same time owners of property may regulate their tenants as strictly as power inequalities between landlord and tenant tolerate. Furthermore, mall owners legal standing allows them the right to oppose nearby developments by others that they see are restricting their prots. Material practices also refer to the factors found in shopping malls based on the architectural space created which is a meticulously regulated, controlled and predictable environment (Judd, 1995, p. 149). By spatial representations I mean the way that Westeld manages and projects the image of the mall. This includes the means by which Westeld promotes the mall as a safe place for family shopping by propagating the idea that the mall is a safe and secure environment.3 Implicit in this activity is the advertising of the mall, which projects the image of the mall as a destination to connect Westeld with the aspiring lifestyles of the afuent middle-class suburban citizens in the area. The promotional campaign of Westeld, typical of retail developments, was based on studies of the suburban catchment. As I will argue below, the campaign drew at a deeper level on the reasons underlying the creation of the

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252 M. Voyce suburbs. In this context some urban theorists have seen the suburbs as a reaction to the chaos of the emerging city (Fischer, 1976). Fishman sees the emergence of the suburbs as a refuge from the city and also from the discordant elements in bourgeois society itself: in this context suburbia reects the alienation of the middle classes from the urban-industrial world they themselves were creating (Fishman, 1996, p. 24). We may thus see malls as enclaves, which are hermetically sealed, which, when examined, reveal the continuum of middle-class consumers and their involvement in shopping and recreation insulated from the unsavoury city streets (Sandercock, 1997, p. 31). At the same time malls are attractive places as they are destinations which replace the old civic meeting places of old (such as town squares), they provide respite from the heat and cold and they provide possible places to disaffected elements of the community. Spatial representations, which govern the mall, I argue, also include ideas of community, which incorporate developmental and entrepreneurial notions. To develop this argument I return to the opening quotes by Alvarez at the start of this article. Alvarez, who is head of Westeld Design, considers that the shoppers own the mall; the public takes ownership (Alvarez, 2001, p. 217). This quote highlights a fundamental notion of property as a social space, or as propriety, which is the particular characteristic or quality of a thing, which might be described as its nature or its essence (the proper, the respectable) (Davies, 1998). Property is also connected to social ideas about the use and the realisation and preservation of the qualities and attributes of a thing (Moran and Skeggs, 2001, p. 381). The type of space that results is treated, as Alvarez argues, as that which should be created and accordingly preserved as it is linked to the notion of community. This connection between the quality of a thing and the preservation of its essence is an important conation, as it links property to the personal sphere. In this connection we may be reminded that Radins work developed the distinction between personal and fungible property. To Radin, personal property is bound up with the person. This is contrasted with fungible property, which is held instrumentally in the sense that should the property be lost it is perfectly replaceable in the market place (Radin, 1993, p. 37). The importance of property as a thing and the conation with the notion of the essence of property which should be preserved in a personal sense and the communal sense is highlighted by Alvarez. The importance of his quote is that he shows us that notions of property, the individual and the community are made collective and communal. The signicance is that the public realm is made private and the private realm is made public (Moran and Skeggs, 2001, p. 383). This type of space created by mall owners, which I may now call community space, I assert, links with the notion of community currently prevalent in public policy debates. This claim requires me to show how the connection between particular connotations of community are linked to different audiences in the context of the discourses of mall ownership and control. Central to notions of community in the public arena are notions of hard work, enterprise and social cohesion. In the specic context of the Hornsby mall the concept is linked to the notion of progress and enterprise culture: that a particular form of culture is desirable wherein consumption is seen as a part of freedom and independence. These values emphasise moral citizenship and the entrepreneurial-self as well as the notion of user-pays which in essence fulls the central notion of consumerism that we must choose and formulate a self (Slater, 1997, pp. 9297). As

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Larner has shown, these values have become what she calls the hegemonic political identity (Larner, 1997, p. 398). These positive values are contrasted with the notion of dependency culture and the need for social exclusion for those groups, which are perceived to threaten neoliberal policies. Implicit in these ideas of community is the question of social order (Adams and Hess, 2001; Cass and Brennan, 2001; Macdonald and Marston, 2001). The essence of current neoliberal social and economic policy is the reintegration of those marginalised by economic productivity. While inclusion is the explicit aim of contemporary neoliberal policy, exclusion is the main ideological effect (Everingham, 2001). In the context of the righteous shopping community, any threat to this community must be excluded (MacLeod, 2002, p. 602). The planning application for Westeld found sympathy in a climate based on the neoliberal reform agenda where notions of competition, deregulation and privatisation have become the dominant orthodoxy. In contemporary urban policy economic development has been given priority over social and environmental objectives. This climate has bred the notion of the city as a growth engine (Molotch, 1976) through the designing of competitive place as a vehicle of quality of life and urban renewal (Gleeson and Low, 2000, p. 141). As I will later demonstrate, the linkage of ideas of Westeld property as a community-space and as a community-resource for development for the expanded rate paying community in this growth environment, found favour with residents in Hornsby. These residents, convinced of rising house prices, encouraged by Westelds development, believed that consequently redevelopment would provide local growth, and a safe shopping area. The Planning Law Background to the Hornsby Development In order to develop my argument and explain the impact of spatial practices it is essential to give the planning background to the development of the Hornsby mall. This explanation will also demonstrate the economic and political power that large corporations enjoy in Australia and their role in the planning process. We will then understand how mall owners may manipulate what I call semipublic space to meet their particular marketing needs. I therefore outline how Hornsby Council dealt with Westelds planning application.4 I do this to indicate why Westeld was concerned with the building of the mall in a particular way and to stress Westelds control over the planning outcome. This is important for my argument as it shows how the mall owners wanted the physical space of the mall to t with their vision of controlled entry. The rst Westeld shopping mall in Australia was a small one (by modern standards), built in Hornsby in the 1960s. Since then Westeld has developed 29 other centres throughout Australia. Westeld is also currently extending into the USA. Westeld is widely regarded as the leading developer of shopping malls in Australia. The company management and control are still dominated by the founding Lowy family. By the 1990s the small Westeld centre in Hornsby needed updating. The opportunity for Westeld to buy the adjacent Northgate centre allowed Westeld the chance to redevelop their investment by linking the two developments into one complex. In 1998 Westeld applied to the Council to build one of the largest centres in Australia, consisting of 100 000 square metres of lettable oor space with

254 M. Voyce parking for over 4000 cars. In addition to the anchor stores of Grace Brothers, David Jones and K-Mart there were to be over 200 specialty shops. The controversial part of the application proved to be the size of the project, the buying up of public land by Westeld, and the integration of the proposed development into the adjacent areas. As regards the size of the project, the outcome of the development was that Westelds would control 75 per cent of the retail space in the Hornsby Town Centre and would eventually account for 95 per cent of the turnover (Design Collaborative Economic Report, 1996, p. 24. This report is called Economic Report hereafter). To help evaluate the Westeld planning application Hornsby Council employed an independent rm of planning and development consultants (Economic Report). Their report recommended that the Council reject the proposal. However, the proposal did go ahead with only a few modications to the original plan. The strong recommendation of rejection from the consultants was ameliorated by the fact that while the consultants rejected the proposal, they acknowledged rather grudgingly that it could be approved subject to a wide range of matters being attended to. These included a range of matters that later led to public objections to the scheme. The consultants considered that a just good enough scheme was not acceptable, as the public interest demanded a better solution (Design Collaborative Economic Report, 1996, p. 24. Planning Application 580/96. This report is called Economic Assessment hereafter). Overall, the consultants considered that the suggested plan was a mean proposal and that the basis of its success depended on acquiring parts of the public domain and returning nothing to it. They considered that a smaller, less internally focused centre, could create opportunities for greater interaction between it and the balance of the town centre (ibid., pp. 8, 1415). Under planning law the Council was obliged to consider the economic impact of the proposal (Section 90 of the Environmental Protection Act, see Farrier, 2000, p. 205). In preparing their planning application Westeld argued that the proposed scheme would have a minimal impact on the Hornsby Town Centre and the adjacent trade area.5 Westeld claimed that the turnover in these areas would only be reduced by 2.2 per cent (Economic Report, p. 4). The consultants noted that these gures should be treated with caution. They also expressed their concern for West Hornsby, the area isolated from the centre of Hornsby because of the railway line (Economic Assessment, p. 14). The consultants concluded it was not possible to state what the impact would be in both the North Shore area of Sydney and more generally on the Hornsby Town Centre (Economic Assessment, p. 24). Of particular concern to the consultants was Westelds proposal to buy a public road so that they could integrate their shopping area into one block. (The consultants noted the obvious fact that Council in effect held this land in trust for the public.) Concern was expressed over the appearance of the overhead link between the two properties which comprised use of public space in the town centre (Assessment, pp. 57). The consultants noted the effect of the proposed overhead link, which, it argued, was to keep shoppers in Westeld, and to stop them straying into other areas outside of Westeld control (Economic Assessment, p. 16). This was exemplied, the consultants argued, by the applicants insistence on the overhead link and the proposed subterranean link underneath the two properties.

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Other concerns of the consultants were the lack of interaction of the proposal with the Hornsby Town Centre. In this regard the consultants noted that the rest of the town centre consisted of light ofces; the consultants were concerned with how the two would integrate commercially, socially and aesthetically. The consultants concluded that the proposed developments were conceptually awed and that the conceptual basis appeared to place private interests above the public interest (Economic Assessment, p. 8). There was little opposition to the Westeld application from the public. Westeld carried out a sophisticated promotion of the mall against the background that Hornsby urgently needed to be developed. The Council after delaying the proposal for some time was eventually persuaded by Westeld. The Council was also due for re-election and they did not want to be seen to be holding up progress. In this light it is understandable that despite the major objections of the planning consultants the Westeld plan was approved subject only to minor concessions by Westeld. The Governance by Westeld over Tenants, Customers and the Owners of Adjacent Businesses Outside the Mall I have indicated that property is usually seen by lawyers as a set of rights to exclude, alienate and transfer land. However, as I have argued property may be seen more as a social idea as regards a set of spatial practices as to whom may enter property. In this sense property consists of material practices or behaviourable data exercisable by corporations to protect its enterprises (Gray and Gray, 2000, pp. 111112). It is therefore necessary to outline the material practices of Westeld as landlord. In view of my interest in spatial practices it is instructive to note its control of its customers as well as its attempts to control the adjacent area and its policy regarding perceived threats to its business interests. With the growth of shopping centres, shop owners have been forced to open up in large-scale malls or to risk the decline of their customer base in street areas. This places pressure on shopkeepers to starve outside the mall or to pay high rents inside the mall. Should shopkeepers open up in the mall they suffer longer trading hours, higher employment costs and higher rents. In addition, tenants in malls suffer from lack of secure tenure. Such problems include the inability to sell the business and the loss of good will. Landlords also insert ratchet clauses in their leases so that as retail sales increase, the rent is raised. Landlords control this process by monitoring till outings via computerised banking controls. Tenants also have to pay shopping centres management expenses, suffer from changes in tenancy mix, and, during the term of the lease, they may suffer relocation should it suit the landlords interests. At the same time the mall owner exerts control over shopkeepers through various clauses in leases covering shop design, logo, opening hours, etc. (Report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Techology, 1997, p. 16. Hereafter called the Report). These problems are endemic in shopping centres and now exist in Hornsby.6 I have noted how shopping malls consist of meticulously regulated and controlled and predictable environments (Judd, 1995, p. 149). Malls provide a predictable, uniform and protable venue for such chains of national franchise stores. Mall owners encourage well-known franchise stores to open in malls as

256 M. Voyce they have the nancial backing, expertise and marketing skill to ensure success (Ritzer, 1996, p. 29). The most signicant feature of shopping malls is their totally controlled environment in which everything is pre-ordained by the developer and nothing is left to chance. As Brown (1992) argues, the size of the shopping centre, the shape, accessibility, contents, parking and the psychology of the milieu are manipulated to maximise customer spending (Brown, 1992, p. 176; Gilbert, 1999). Malls thus are represented as safe and secure places for consumption and the formation of particular lifestyles. For instance, centres are designed to control the ow of pedestrians past as many outlets as possible; hence the tenant mix is a major concern with the placement of anchor stores at each end of the ground oor. This placement of anchor stores, such as Woolworths and Coles (major grocery stores) has the effect of drawing customers along a wider shopping area. The lower levels, for instance in the Hornsby mall, create a particular sense of urgency through the conned space. The upper levels are constructed to attract leisure customers with more money to spend. At the same time there is a hybrid quality to the space created as there is no attempt to create a sense of a particular space, but rather a progressive or global sense of place (Hopkins, 1990; Miller, Jackson and Thrift et al., 1998, p. 21). Historically there has been great tension between landlord and tenant and legislation, both State and Federal, has sought to regulate the relationship. Retail tenancies are regulated in Australia by State legislation. In addition, the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act regulates unfair and uncompetitive business practices. This Federal legislation may be of assistance to tenants but few tenants have been able to bring successful action under this Act. There has been a long history of complaints to various governments about the retail tenancies legislation, culminating in an inquiry by the House of Representatives called Finding a Balance: Towards Fair Trading in Australia (1997) (here after called the Report). The Committee considered elements of the Trade Practices Act, franchising and retail arrangements. Under the law of retail tenancies, landlords must covenant to give quiet enjoyment of premises, hold rent stable, and give tenants a right of renewal after the expiration of their term. The business conduct issues raised by the Hornsby retail tenants have included all the issues referred to above. The Committee concluded that there was a great disparity of power between landlord and tenants in large shopping centres. The Committee noted that the idea that there is a war going on between the two accurately conveys the tenor of the evidence presented to the Committee. Retail tenants who gave evidence to the Committee considered that they had lost most of the battles to date. Much of the evidence to the Committee was given in camera because of the fear of victimisation of property managers. One expert to the Committee considered that the agreements between landlords and tenants were not really leases as such but rather trading rights for the retail of goods in a particular shopping centre (Professor Millington quoted in the Report at p. 75). I should mention the effect of the mall development on business in the immediate surroundings. Westeld claimed, through their lawyers typically, that their development would have little impact on local business (Economic Report, p. 22). However, the opposite is true, as local businesses now appear to

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be suffering (Hornsby Advocate, 2 May 2002, p. 14). At the same time, Westeld has pursued its policy of attempting to block other developments, as in the case of the movie cinema, which it claimed threatened its chain of cinemas (Hornsby Advocate, 16 May 2002, pp. 5 and 11, 11 July 2002, p. 11). At the same time Westeld has opposed against strong public opinion the restoration of Sunday markets in Florence Street. Finally for some time Westeld was allowed to utilise its security guards to control the Florence Street mall. Public protest resulted in the Hornsby Council withdrawing this permission. Shopping centres in Sydney have developed the practice of issuing banning notices to those members of the public it wishes to exclude from the mall. These are usually young people who it considers are detrimental to the ambience of the mall and may be involved in shoplifting. While the practice varies from centre to centre the specied person is usually banned from entering the centre from 6 months to 2 years. There has been a case of a life ban. Should a person return to the mall the police charges him or her with trespass. Shopping centres appear to have given security guards an open-discretion on issuing notices (Grant, 2000). In practice, notices are given for frivolous reasons (such as an association with adversely known peers), such youths often hang out at the entrance of malls to socialise rather than to shop (Grant, 2000). There are some cases where youths have been prosecuted for trespass where the judgements are available. The available cases reveal that youths have not been successful in defending a charge of trespass, as they have not been able to defend the charge that they had a lawful excuse for being on the shopping mall premises.7 In the last few months Westeld in Hornsby have started to issue banning notices (according to Rebecca Remoundos, Security Manager). In conclusion the evidence given on the pressure of mall owners on tenants reects the enormous political and legal power exercised by corporate power in Australia and the power of large companies to use legal means to achieve their goals. In this context the legal system may be seen as a means to protect the power of business elite and to enable enterprises to generate business (Cauleld and Wanna, 1995). These comments also raise the issue, concerning the extent of the laws relevance to business in Australia. Is it only a forum for the times when matters do not go the way big business intends? A long line of research indicates that there is always a large gap between law and practice (Nelken, 1981; Cotterrell, 1992, pp. 4470; Bernstein, 2001). Other scholars have argued that under neo liberalism, the volume of legislation became unnecessary and burdensome, hence if there is a failure of law, this is not undesirable.8 Finally there is the Foucault critique that argues that while law is still present as an inuence in modern society, there is an increase in the shift in the inuence of the disciplines (for example, psychology, demography) and consequently a displacement of law as a form of regulation. We might now ask the question given the empirical evidence surrounding landlords treatment of their tenants, does this evidence indicate that the commercial retail industry operates outside the law? Should we follow the Foucault approach, we might see that it is not only perhaps that the law is ignored by companies but also those subjects in modernity are subjects to other discourses, such as the discourse of consumption. If this seems to be the case

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258 M. Voyce what is the implication for our conceptions of property law? I come back to this issue in my conclusion. The Promotion of the Mall I have suggested that the social idea of property as a set of spatial practices involve both material and spatial representations. I have discussed material representations in the last section. I now wish to discuss the ability of owners to make spatial representations concerning the mall. The importance of spatial representations is that they discursively construct the class of people who may enter the mall and by implication those who may not enter. In the Hornsby area Westeld faces severe competition from rival shopping centres. Westelds market researchers have advised Westeld to adopt different marketing strategies for different segments of the perceived market (interview with Terry Blinnikka). By way of response the mall market managers have adopted classic mallmarket strategies for the development of an appropriateshopping format, market segmentation and the development of the mall as a pleasant and attractive destination (Melody et al., 2000). In this regard according to Blinnikka, its market researchers have deployed forms of computerised surveillance to monitor databases on personal consumption. In one sense the physical form of the building reects the resultant data. The Hornsby shopping centre catchment has one of the highest demographic incomes in Australia.9 As perceived by Westeld, local people have a choice of environment and desire comfortable places where they can rest and be entertained. The greater part of the area of Hornsby thus consists of residential suburbs for middle-class citizens or the new petite bourgeoisie class. This term refers to an entrepreneurial, well-paid class, whose members dene themselves through globally oriented, populist values systems and through the ownership of expensive consumer goods. This group may be characterised by its involvement in the global economy through the manipulation of signs and symbols (Knox and Taylor, 1995, p. 13; Gwyther, 2002, p. 8). As in other global cities, this new elite is well educated, politically empowered and is uent at manipulating diverse symbolic systems (Reich, 1991). The signicance of this group has been well researched by market researchers and the consequent high market area of the mall is aimed, according to Blinnikka, at the high socio-economic achievers who understand quality. The image the Marketing Manager of the Hornsby store has of the desirable up-market customers is that they are conservative people from the better end of town and they appreciate quality and convenience. These visible achievers appreciate through their education and travel the high quality shops and Borders bookshop. I conclude that the mall space at Hornsby reects the perception of the customer base. The physical layout of the mall therefore reects this. In essence different areas of the mall have been created to coincide with the perceived and desired market base. For instance the ground oor of the mall is designed for everyday basic shopping with its anchor food shops. The top level has been designed for the marketed need of people who have more money to spend. At the same time certain contained areas are created for young people who attend movies. Finally it must be emphasised no space has been developed specically for young people who merely wish to congregate.

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This article has two purposes. Firstly I have been concerned with formulating a new understanding of property in a wider sense by examining discourses within neoliberalism other than those connected with property in the form of property as ownership, alienation and exclusion. Secondly I have attempted to show how the mall is governed by spatial practices. As a case study I have concentrated on a shopping centre in Sydney. The rst characteristic of property in the sense of ideas of ownership, alienation and exclusion (in what I called the narrow sense of property) is that laws force or impact is being eclipsed by other discourses associated with consumption and a desirable lifestyle. In the context of neoliberalism law (ie the narrow view of property), loses its signicance (Foucault, 1991, p. 95; see also Foucault, 1978, pp. 9091, 1980, p. 102). I argue that neoliberal discourses associated with market ideologies and entrepreneurial professions, which emphasise accountability and control, are supplementing legal notions of property. Secondly, property in the wider sense is constructed by discursive practices but also material practices. Here I refer to the vast array of physical and technical arrangements (such as the different forms of surveillance) that concretise or embody the discursive practices. I refer here both to the forms of surveillance which work to exclude undesirable people and also to the forms of surveillance which construct the desired form of the customer base. I thus see material practices as enabling delity or condence of outcome to be obtained within the space of the mall through a complete integration of protective practices. Thirdly, property in the wider sense involves the notion that the mall is private property in the sense that the public take ownership of the mall. Through the action of selected shoppers, the landscape (i.e. the mall property) is seen as belonging to the appropriate-shopping public. In this context users are owners. Here I have referred to ideas of entrepreneurial discourse that the appropriate community is one, which forges an identity through forms of consumption. It is this community of shoppers that paradoxically own the mall. It is clear that this form of ownership is not to be understood in terms of ownership of lands and buildings but rather in terms of a proper form of behaviour or propriety (this form of argument relies on Moran and Skeggs, 2001 and Moran et al., 2001). As regards the usage of mall property I have shown that the mall is constructed to form a predictable controlled environment which acts like a prison in reverse: to keep deviant behavior on the outside and to form a consumerist form of citizenship inside (Christopherson, 1994). The outcome of these practices is a form of property, which is neither public nor private. My conclusion argues that shopping malls represent a semi-privatised form of property that is developing as a result of the discourses of neoliberalism. Property in this context is coterminous with safety and particular discourses on consumption. Spatial representations promote the mall property as an intrinsically safe public space for individuals and family shoppers. At the same time the mall is linked with ideas that resonate with middle-class ideals. These notions reinforce the notion of the righteous shopping community. The righteous shopping community by implication includes those enterprising individu-

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260 M. Voyce als constructed as hegemonic under neoliberalism (Larner, 1997, p. 396). The community in Westeld terms means the shopping public, which should not be interrupted. It follows that any activity detrimental to consumption must be limited. Hence all disruptive potentialities real or imagined should be removed. While these recent exclusionary practices of Westeld may contradict promotional material which advertise the space as being the new village green they nonetheless resonate with those seeking secure and safe shopping for themselves or their families (Sandercock, 1997, p. 28). Ironically such ideas of community and the intrinsic notion of security sit well with the concept of citizenship and place contained in the exclusive suburbs where most shoppers reside.

Acknowledgement

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My thanks to the local history librarian at Hornsby Library and George Watts who allowed me access to Hornsby Council records and planning applications. My thanks also to Gabriella Gwyther, Roger Keil, Paul Henman and Robert Baker. I also thank two anonymous referees who made helpful comments.

Notes
1. 2. This journal is an independent publication but its views reect the interests of the shopping centre industry. For the Foucault approach to space see Foucault (1975, 1980, 1986). For material that develops this approach see Driver (1985) and Philo (1992). For recent theoretical approaches to space see generally Soja (1989), Lefebvre (1991) and Blomley (1997, 1998). The connection between planning law and social control has been made by some scholars: see Perin (1977) and Boyer (1983). In the Australian context see Gibson and Watson (1994). For a Foucauldian approach: see Kendall and Wickham (1996) and Lewi and Wickham (1996). Interview with Terro Blinnikka, Regional Marketing Manager Westeld Hornsby. Recently Westeld has provided family entertainment and child-minding facilities to increase its family appeal for shoppers. Local government in Australia is undertaken by Councils, which are elected locally and are supervised at State level by State government. Local governments concern themselves with a variety of functions such as control of land use, sewage, parks and the administration of rates. Local Councils also supervise planning control. In this regard an important role of Local Councils is that they are able to exact contributions from developers for the provision of services and amenities. Under the planning legislation there must be a nexus between the development and the services that the increased population generates by the development (Farrier, 2002, p. 212). In the case of Westeld at Hornsby the approval was given at a local level after several years of pressure put on the council by Westeld. In the case of the Hornsby development, Westeld contributed to road maintenance and the upgrading of the public mall area. The consultants considered the effect on the whole North Shore area. This assertion is based on the interviews of several shop owners who requested to remain anonymous. See O.v. Wedd [2000] TASSC 74 dealing with a Northgate Shopping Centre at Glenorchy, Tasmania and Police v. Street, Magistrates Court Sydney, before Magistrate Gilmour. This case dealt with a trespass to the Macquarie Centre Sydney. For a discussion of the defence of trespass see Grant (2000). This argument underpins much of the new economic rights thinking. For a classic view see Hayek (1960, 1982). Westeld states that the social spending of the trade area on which the Hornsby mall will draw has a retail spending capacity per capita of $8484 per person compared with the average Australian average of $7303 per person, cited in Shopping Centre News, 19 May 2001, p. 21.

3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

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