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Comment by underwater | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, malls in Australia are alive and well, and do include libraries, supermarkets, medical care, and so on.

There's a whole lot that are struggling, too.

My apartment is on top of a shopping centre. There's the three major supermarkets, various electronic and fashion retail, a large doctors surgery, radiology and pathology labs, physio, dental, a bunch of pharmacies, and a whole lot of restaurants.

It's incredibly convenient for me. That said, there's been a lot of closures of various stores, and I know other people have repeatedly mentioned that sometimes it feels like a ghost town. I suspect that without the built-in client base living above, that there would have been a lot more closures of stores.

I remember supermarkets in malls back in the 80s. People smoked in malls back then and grocery stores, doctor offices.

And bowling alleys and McDonald's playgrounds, and really most restaurants had a smoking and non-smoking section, but it would still drift over and foul up the whole space.

Though I was a smoker myself I’m greatful we mostly made away with this habit and banned any indoor smoking, it stank soo soo bad, it’s surprising smoking caught up in the first place. Learned from Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self how Edward Bernays started the whole thing up. It’s a great documentary btw

> Interestingly, malls in Australia are alive and well

So is the average person's income, in AUS.

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