r/Glasgow Tools

I'm struggling to understand your logic in coming to this conclusion, as it's not as if this plan will make the city centre worse in respect to how it competes (or doesn't) with existing out of town malls.

Nothing is changing with the out of town shopping centres. People who like to drive and park and do their shopping at those places will still do so.

This just means that the city centre becomes a more pleasant, welcoming space for those who choose (or have little choice, through not owning a car anyway) to spend their time there. Whether as workers, shoppers, diners or even residents.

Thing that always gets me in conversations like this, is how people that complain about such changes, and who say they love shopping centres more than the city centre, never seem to realize the fundamental difference in experience between the two, and how, actually this plan is in many ways just emulating what's been shown to work in shopping malls for decades.

I.e. in Silverburn or Braehead, you don't have queues of cars stretching down the central concourse. You don't have to wait at traffic lights to cross from one side to the other every 100 metres. You don't have cars belching out fumes feet away from the food court. They're fundamentally car-free places, which are easy to navigate on foot (once you're there).

This is just levelling the playing field and making the city centre experience at least as pleasant as malls have it.