Urgent Need for Multi-Story Shopping Malls Symposium

Those concerned about excessive urban sprawl throughout the United States can help promote land conservation by helping to finance symposiums and workshops on how to make multi-story shopping malls as compact, energy-efficient, customer-friendly, and attractive as possible.

The multi-level shopping malls offer a very pleasant contrast to one-story shopping centers, the latter of which require significantly more land in order to provide the same total number of stores to customers.

I'm also hopeful that an annual nationwide awards program will soon be established that honors, and provides generous financial rewards for, the very finest of the two-story and three-story indoor shopping malls throughout the United States.

Among the criteria that might be used in rating multi-story shopping malls for overall level of excellence could include:

---Are the exterior and interior of that shopping mall so attractive that this shopping mall makes an impressive architectural contribution to the urban scenery of the city or town in which that mall is situated?

---Does that shopping mall attract lots of tourists from out of town as customers inside that shopping mall? Is the shopping mall a leading "tourism drawing card" for the city or town in which that shopping mall is situated?

---How much fossil fuel does that shopping mall consume on a monthly basis?

---To what extent is that shopping mall's electricity powered by renewable energy sources?

---What is the overall energy efficiency rating of that shopping mall?

---Is that shopping mall situated within a comfortable walking distance from a mass-transportation bus stop or mass-transportation passenger-train station or subway stop?

---Is that shopping mall fully accessible to persons who are handicapped? Are there elevator options, for instance, that make it easy and comfortable for a handicapped person to shop in that shopping mall?

---Does that shopping mall provide an adequate number of emergency exits, in the event of a fire, tornado, or hurricane?

---Is it safe for customers to shop inside that shopping mall without being victimized by pick-pocketing or mugging or theft from other persons anywhere on the premises of that shopping mall?

---To what extent does that shopping mall attract illicit-youth gangs as "visitors" inside that mall?

--How many robberies of any of the various stores inside that shopping mall reportedly occurred in the most recent 12-month, 24-month, 36-month, or five-year period?