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(Dis)continuities in Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy: the
Shopping Mall Experience in Ghana
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DOI: 10.1007/s12132-014-9249-x
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(Dis)continuities in Scale, Scope and
Complexities of the Space Economy: the
Shopping Mall Experience in Ghana
Martin Oteng-Ababio & Isaac K. Arthur
Urban Forum
 
ISSN 1015-3802
 
Urban Forum
DOI 10.1007/s12132-014-9249-x
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Urban Forum
DOI 10.1007/s12132-014-9249-x
(Dis)continuities in Scale, Scope and Complexities
of the Space Economy: the Shopping Mall
Experience in Ghana
Martin Oteng-Ababio & Isaac K. Arthur
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract Contrary to common assumptions, the (re)emergence of organized shopping
malls in Ghana is not a new development. Accounts of their existence date back to the
pre-colonial era, when their character, status and operations were as popular as the
malls of today. What is missing in current narratives is an analysis of how these malls—
consisting of elegant apartment designs integrated with appreciable green spaces and
centrally located food courts to entice visitors to lengthen their stay—impact the urban
economy and the traditional retail structure. Using participant observation, semi-
structured interviews and a survey, we examine the role of malls in the local economy
and their possible ramifications on the retail structure. The paper interrogates whether
the emerging malls can crowd out their seemingly ‘fortified’ informal predecessors.
The results demonstrate two key findings. First, that positive outcome is intrinsically
tied to the manner in which malls are conceptualized, especially with increasing trade
liberalization and its reinvigorating impact on the informal retail structure. Our findings
frame the continuity of the informal sector as important to the success of the malls.
Second, that malls must respond positively to the rising demands and tastes of
postmodern consumers and the middle class by investing in attractive, iconic
architecture—or they risk being pushed out of business by the ever-growing
activities of the informal retail sector. Our results are congruent with current
literature that questions some of the conceptual and policy framings of infor-
mality, and we opine that such framing makes evident the sector’s significant
contribution to urban poverty alleviation.
Keywords Informal economy . Consumer behaviour . Space economy . Shopping
mall experiences . Accra . Ghana
M. Oteng-Ababio : I. K. Arthur (*)
Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, Legon, P. O. Box LG59,
Legon, Accra, Ghana
e-mail: ikarthur@ug.edu.gh
M. Oteng-Ababio
e-mail: moababio@ug.edu.gh
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M. Oteng-Ababio, I.K. Arthur
Introduction
There is widespread agreement that the twentieth-first century city differs spatially from
that of the mid-twentieth century and from the colonial city that preceded it
(Beauregard and Haila 2000; Myers 2011; Pieterse 2011). The literature on globaliza-
tion, particularly in reference to African cities, has documented the growth of multiple
business nodes, peri-urban expansion and a phenomenal growth in urban informal
settlements (Grant and Nijman 2004; Oteng-Ababio and Wrigley-Asante 2013). Some
of this literature identifies recurring patterns and spatial fragmentation across diverse
cities (Murray 2008). In some cases, the combined forces of globalization are often
portrayed as resulting in a new city in the making (Simone 2004). These theorists
typically emphasize the new, innovative and rapid transformation of urban environ-
ments in Africa.
The postmodernist perspectives on globalization and African cities highlight
a disorderly city (Murray 2008), a fragmented, partitioned and much less
legible urban environment than its modern precursor. Contemporary urban
development takes place in contexts where global economic forces are more
at play than ever before (surges in foreign investment, increased cross-border
transactions and partially delocalized property markets with greater participation
by members of the diaspora), and international forces are weakly buffered by
the national state and/or municipal authorities (Grant 2015).
For some scholars of urban life, the hierarchical and “planned spaces of the
modernist city are being replaced by a pastiche of unregulated spaces of the postmodern
city” (Beauregard and Haila 2000, p. 23). The globalizing urban lens focuses on the
growth of the city outwards, highlighting the new skyscrapers and attractive architec-
tural new spaces and shopping centers that combine local and international confluences
from the overpopulated urban traditional markets (Rogerson 1996; Oteng-Ababio
2014). In Ghana, the ongoing development within the ‘Airport City’ in the Accra
Metropolis exemplifies this new paradigm (Oteng-Ababio 2014).
While a globalization lens on the emerging shopping malls has much to contribute in
theorizing their new spatial features, it is on much shakier ground in understanding how
these emerging complexities impact on the local economy, particularly on the informal
retail structures. This is significant in situations where these traditional structures do not
necessarily fit into the globalization narratives (Mitchell and Kirkup 2003).
Consequently, the role of these informal activities vis-à-vis the (re)emerging shopping
malls is overlooked and remains understudied, and the narratives of these diverse
shopping malls have not been updated since the ushering in of globalizing forces.
Indeed, understanding the emerging mall concept and general consumer behaviour in
the current retail structure—and how the concept fits or does not fit into the city space
economy—is over 50 years out of date.
In most African countries, economic geographers, urban planners and policymakers
each tend to approach the city and its retail structure very differently. They focus on the
modern architectural designs, the new foreign participants and their financial invest-
ments, the diversification of goods and the ensuing aggressive marketing strategies, but
they are more cautious about their depictions of urban change. Scholars emphasize
continuity in parts of the city as opposed to an across-the-board schism and complete
ruptures with the past. Here, the layers of urban economic geographies and urban
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
residential patterns laid out in earlier periods are altered, but change proceeds on top of,
in addition to, and beyond these existing layers.
This perspective emphasizes the relatively fixed form of the older city, and abrupt
transformation is buffered by continuities in the built environment and by the weight of
urban historical development (Patel 2013). Some urban and economic geographers give
special mention to the retail sector as an important and distinct area within the urban
mosaic, although it is not studied in its own right (Owusu 2013). The contemporary city
retail structure is not totally unrecognizable beside its earlier precursor, although this
structure is always dynamic and never static (Rogerson 1995). Thus, urban continuity is
highlighted as shaping how urban space economies function and how they fit and do
not fit into the city beyond.
In this study, we argue that a middle ground more accurately describes the retail
structure in most contemporary African cities. We are not convinced that the
(re)emerging shopping malls can entirely replace the informal retail structure, nor are
they an entirely new entity. We are acutely aware of the knowledge gap on the
respective roles of both the new mall and its informal predecessor in the contemporary
urban economy. We think that the current retail structure is somewhere in between, and
it combines elements of continuity and discontinuity. We opine that there is a more
complex patterning of old and new trends (forces) and of various combinations of
these. We use the Accra Mall (hereafter, the Mall) as a vehicle to explore and highlight
these dynamics and the ability of formal and informal sectors to reconfigure their
activities, respond to a changed urban context and engage the city beyond. Our intent is
to redress the imbalance in the literature by focusing attention away from architecture,
internationalization and diversification, and towards how such transformations impact
the local economy.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. First, after discussing the
materials and methods for the study, we interrogate the historical perspective on the
concept of malls in Accra and their re-emergence. Second, we provide an assessment of
the Mall’s scale, scope and complexities within the urban space economy and provide
spatial contours of its influence. Third, we discuss the Mall’s relationship with the
informal retail structure and question whether the re-emergence of malls can stall the
demise of the latter. Fourth, we discuss the issues raised by understanding the intricate
transformation of the retail structure in general and consider how its elucidation should
inform a more holistic approach to a sustainable urban management.
Materials and Methods
To achieve our objectives, we adopted a mixed-method approach to conduct a survey in
and around the Accra Mall. This included semi-structured interviews with retail
experts, managers and operators in the Mall and with the city authorities and public
officials selected on availability. To examine the impact of the Mall on the urban
structure and, perhaps, on the future, we relied on administered questionnaires with
2,000 primary shoppers between February and April 2014, of which 1,908 were
retrieved for analysis (a response rate of 95.4 %). All the respondents were
selected based on their willingness to partake in the study and thus constituted
a convenience sample.
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The information sought was detailed on the respondents’ age, their origin and their
purpose for being at the Mall. In addition, we also interviewed informal retailers around
the Mall to understand how they use ‘gray areas’ and generic trade classifications to
participate (compete) in the retail industry. We observed about 30 stall traders around
the Mall, although at night over 100 traders set up on individually supplied tables,
crates or boxes on the pavements along the road, providing convenient and affordable
options for many residents who choose to shop at night. Mainly because of the
similarity of responses, we conducted interviews with only 24 of these traders, most
of whom were over the age of 20.
In general, the questions were aimed at encouraging ‘storytelling’ and invit-
ing the interviewees to relate their personal experiences. In some cases, the
interviews were conducted with the help of an interpreter. The textual data
generated from the interviews and focus groups discussions were transcribed
verbatim from audio recordings and, to a lesser degree, participant observation
notes. The transcripts were manually analysed thematically, which helped in
capturing the complexities of meanings within the textual data set and identi-
fying and describing both implicit and explicit ideas.
Theoretical Background
Historical Perspective of Shopping Centers in Accra
A shopping center is simply a single building or collection of buildings containing
multiple retail units (ICSC 2004). Strictly speaking, this can be either a wholly planned
center developed all at once and owned and operated under a single management or a
semi-cohesive shopping area that has evolved over time. Technically, shopping malls
are usually enclosed, whereas shopping centere are open. Because most of the interest
in urban studies regards the planned type, the former will receive most of the attention
in our discussions. Earlier studies (Mitchell and Kirkup 2003; Valodia 2006) have
indicated that mall development results in several benefits, particularly to consumers,
including convenient location, large variety of goods offered, lower prices than small
retailers and better quality of goods. Mitchell and Kirkup (2003) argue that retail
development is a stimulator in the regeneration of physically, socially and economically
neglected areas and can stimulate new social networks.
The literature on modern indoor retail spaces in Ghana indicates that the
practice has existed in its major cities since the mid-twentieth century (Murillo
2012). An early indoor mall prototype was the Kingsway Departmental Store,
which was built in 1929 by the United Africa Company, located on Accra High
Street, and named after the company’s headquarters in Africa House on the
Kingsway in London. This subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever was a
shopping place to enable the colonial masters meet their consumption needs and
maintain their home lifestyles in their ‘adopted home’. The two-storey building
with a full basement originally had shops located on all three levels, apparently
in response to those seeking weather-protected, all-under-one-roof shopping.
Significantly, it offered a link with overseas economies in the distribution and
consumption of foreign products (Murillo 2012).
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By 1950, with a growing indigenous literate population, Accra was to
become the home of several major department stores, and this trend continued
especially after the country’s independence in 1957. Of great significance and
national pride was the inauguration by the country’s first President of a new
Kingsway building at Kwame Nkrumah Avenue on 31 January 1957. Suffice it
to add that, even at the time, Kingsway was more than just a place to shop but
became part of everyday discourse in socially meaningful ways. For example,
among the Ga women, well-behaved children were called “Kingsway babies”
(Murillo 2012, p. 371).
An equally important retail company, of Swiss origin and dating back to 1921, was
the Union Trading Company, founded as a subsidiary of the Basel Mission to promote
missionary work in British West Africa (Dickson 1971). Another foreign-inspired
department store, established in the middle 1920s, was Glamour, which eventually
metamorphosed into the Melcom Group of Companies in the late 1980s. The depart-
ment stores of the past were not without Ghanaian presence. The Ghana National
Trading Corporation (GNTC) was fully government funded, established by an
Executive Instrument (Statutory Corporations Act 1961) and inspired mainly by the
then government pro-socialist policies.
However, the vibrancy of these department stores was seriously challenged in the
1980s, following years of economic decline and political instability. By the 1990s,
earlier malls had discontinued operating owing to decreased traffic and tenancy, making
the need for major reorganization evident. Indeed, during the Structural Adjustment
Programme from the early 1980s and on through to 2000, some of the old malls,
including Kingsway and GNTC, had to be remodelled into open-air shopping centres.
Some studies indicate that some ‘dead mall’ estates had re-emerged by 2001, and there
is now enough evidence to suggest a continued trend of re-emergence in the early
twenty-first century (Grant 2009; Murillo 2012).
While the earlier malls were concentrated mainly in the Central Business District
(CBD) of Accra, the rise of the suburbs and improved transportation culture in the
twenty-first century seems to have given birth to the new malls’ architectural and
locational style, being created outside the CBD. Locating these malls away from the
CBD, particularly the Accra Mall seems to have something in common with the US
model of highway development with shopping centres located at the interchanges of
these highways (Miller et al. 2008). These malls seem to be encouraged and incentiv-
ized by the growth of new developments in the urban fringe (Grant 2009; Gough and
Yankson 2011). A second stimulus relates to the activities of real estate developers who
tend to group properties together. Such developments generally shape and spread the
familiar exurban landscape of malls.
Re-emergence of the Shopping Mall Concept
The literature on planned malls is not concentrated in one area of study but
spread over a wide variety of disciplines and professions, depending on the
object and method of inquiry. Economics and marketing texts view malls as
mere loci of the retail trade (see Martin and Turley 2004), whereas architecture
and real estate texts concentrate on the structures themselves and their values
(see Jameson 2003). Scholars in urban and regional planning focus on the
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development process or the impacts that new developments may have on the
existing urban structure (Jensen 2007; Marling et al. 2009), while those in the
social sciences (geography, sociology) are primarily interested in the relation-
ship between malls on one hand and behaviour and identity formation on the
other, often making liberal use of concepts borrowed from postmodernist
philosophy (Featherstone 1990, 2007).
This underscores the complexities of study in this area and perhaps explains the
common misconception that all shopping malls are essentially the same. Indeed, this
view is generally linked to the déjà vu attitude that accompanies visiting a particular
mall whose layout, materials and even tenants are unnervingly similar to other cen-
tres—even if they happen to be in geographically separate economies. According to
ICSC (2004), the distinguishing features of shopping malls have very little to do with
the location within a particular country or a particular city, but much to do with factors
such as physical size and morphology, orientation in terms of purpose, market niche
and location in the urban fabric (urban center, out-of-town).
Within the last decade, Africa has witnessed an unprecedented mushrooming
of shopping malls (Mitchell and Kirkup 2003). From Accra in the west, to
Nairobi in the east, Casablanca in the north, and Lusaka in the south, trendy
shopping malls have sprung up as the continent’s cities modernize and its
emergent middle class swells. The Gateway Shopping Centre in Durban
(South Africa), officially opened in 2001 with a retail floor space area of
220,000 m2, is both the largest mall in Africa and the largest in the southern
hemisphere (Lighthelm 2002), and it receives over two million visitors monthly
(FutureGrowth 2009). Morocco Mall in Casablanca was named as the second
largest centre in Africa, with 200,000 m2 of floor space (FutureGrowth 2009).
Accounting for the upsurge in the mall culture in Africa, Alwitt (1995)
points to the increasing economic fortunes of the middle class. England and
Rice (2012, para. 3) also endorse the “prosperity theory” and argue that “with
more cash in their pockets, increasing numbers of Africans are looking to shop
in modern centers rather than the small, rundown, poorly stocked, often infor-
mal stores that have been the norm in the past”. Grant (2015) highlights how in
recent years a number of decidedly upbeat economic examinations of leading
African countries’ performance and increased economic momentum have ap-
peared, garnering positive pro-business assessments. For example, although in
2000 The Economist magazine had regrettably labelled Africa as “the hopeless
continent”, the same magazine in 2011 reported:
African economies registered among the top ten fastest-growing economies in the
world for the last decade (2001–2011) (Angola, 11.1 per cent; Nigeria, 8.9 per
cent; Chad, 7.9 per cent; Mozambique, 7.9 per cent and Rwanda, 7.6 per cent)
and the average African economy is forecasted to outpace its Asian counterparts
over the next five years. (The Economist 2011a)
Africa future hopefuls had a massive endorsement from the World Bank, which
believes Africa could be on the brink of an economic take-off much like the one China
witnessed 30 years ago (The Economist 2011b). The bank sees as phenomenal Africa’s
ability to lure Wall-Mart, one of the largest US retail giants, to the continent in 2011
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
with a 2.4 billion USD deal to secure a majority holding in South Africa’s Massmart.
Economically, this reflects the strong growth the continent has enjoyed in recent years,
with sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product expanding at an average annual rate
of above 5 % throughout the economic crisis since 2008 (Owusu and Oteng-Ababio
2014). Massmart’s chief executive puts it aptly:
We think of ourselves as Wall-Mart’s African investment vehicle …. I think the
global economy has got so bad that there’s a realization that with South America,
India and Asia tapped… there’s only one large billion-sized population left in the
world, and that is Africa.
Similarly, some business stories have hyped Africa as the consumer market
frontier. The fetished consumption that has enticed high-income earners to shop at
symbolic and aesthetically pleasing places echoes the view that “consumers are
reflexive individuals who consume signs to recreate individual identities which are
not fixed, but rather ‘self-images’ of the moment” (Firat 1992, quoted in Burton
2002, p. 792). Africa today is lauded as “the final frontier” for investment and
marketing opportunities, with South African companies establishing strong foot-
holds. For example, it is revealed that Shoprite, Africa’s largest retailer, currently
operates in 17 countries, with 115 supermarkets outside South Africa, including
Kinshasa in Congo (a country better known for conflict and crisis than malls).
Furthermore, Woolworths, a Cape Town-based retailer, has plans to double the
number of its stores across the continent to 104 in the next 2 to 3 years (England
and Rice 2012). John Fraser, head of Woolworths’ international division, further
remarks:
The expansion has been encouraged by the conscious effort African governments
are making to diversify their economies away from dependence on resources….
The other thing that’s happening for us is increasing urbanization in Africa… and
a growing middle class, which is really our target customer (quoted in England
and Rice 2012).
The Ghanaian urban space, particularly Accra, has been populated with shopping
malls in recent years. These are either a collection of buildings containing multiple
retail units, as in the Makola Mall, or simply a single building, as in the Mall, the
subject of our analysis. Characteristically, these malls are planned, developed, owned
and managed as a unit. Prospective retailers have to pay ground rent to a manager, who
is also responsible for the collective good in areas such as parking, security, sanitation,
upkeep and marketing.
Clearly, these emerging malls are far from being new concepts, as they
reflect the continuity of the retail bazaars dating back to the pre-colonial period,
as already discussed. The discontinuity, however, relates to their spatial loca-
tions, architectural designs and the ‘product mix’. The twentieth century saw
the advent of the arcade within the CBD, which was a pedestrianized shopping
street that harbored all the major shopping centers. The modern shopping malls
defy this spatially concentrated pattern, although the principle generally remains
the same.
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Results
Doing Business in Accra Shopping Mall: the Scale, Scope and Complexities
The Mall, located on the Tema Motorway, is one of the modern shopping malls in West
Africa (Klutse 2008). Commissioned on 4 July 2008, the Mall has been a place of
attraction because of its functional variety. This enclosed, fully air-conditioned mall has
20,000 m2 of retail space.
The sheer number of international brands in the Mall (e.g. Panasonic, Puma, Bata,
Payless, Swatch) as well as some African giants such as Game, Shoprite and Mr. Price,
all engaged in the retail trade is striking. Despite being located outside the CBD, the
Mall has become a noteworthy retail outlet, offering shoppers a choice of items ranging
from imported consumer goods to banking services. It reflects a space that “inculcate[s]
the tastes and identities of global consumer culture” (Voyce 2006, p. 273), with
entertainment outlets such as Silverbird recently coming on stream. Thus making the
Mall an example of a “shoppertainment complex” (Marks and Bezzoli 2001, p. 34).
What is generally unknown is that approximately 37 foreign companies presently
operate within the Mall (see Fig. 2), and it accounts for imports of goods valued at
an estimated 8–12 million USD annually and for total daily sales of 150–220 thousand
USD. On average, a total of 20,000 people visit the Mall on a daily basis (personal
interview, March 2014) (Fig. 1).
In terms of the global presence in the Mall, Fig. 2 shows that companies from South
Africa, the US and Nigeria are major players. South Africa and Nigeria dominate
among the companies from the sub-region, while the US outnumbers those from
outside Africa. From Europe, Italy, France and Turkey have a conspicuous represen-
tation, while South Korea and China also record an impressive presence. Regarding
operating space, South Africa, the US and Nigeria are the three top countries in the
league table. Shoprite operates as a central brokering node, importing retail goods
through its international affiliates and redistributing them to its various mini-outlets in
the city.
Locally, a number of companies, including those providing banking and communi-
cation services, have strong representation, targeting the higher income and business
Fig. 1 The Accra Mall. Source: Isaac K. Arthur, November 2014
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Fig. 2 The geography of retail operators with the Mall
community. Significantly, most of these companies are multinationals, having operated
in Ghana since independence. Other local players concentrate on the entertainment and
restaurant sectors. Our study revealed that the main challenge confronting local enter-
prises relates to the ground rent, quoted as 60 USD per square meter ($60/m2).
Consequently, the tenancy movements (flows) exhibit considerable variation over time
and space, with some well-known companies like Frankies1 being off the Mall’s radar.
We established that to reduce the cost of doing business, many retailers do not
necessarily acquire a ‘shop’ but rent a stand(s) periodically for a particular purpose,
including product promotion. There are also those who concentrate on fulfilling orders
from clients, and they shop around for brokers willing to pay the highest price for a
particular product being introduced into the market. Such companies serve as a link in
the supply chains: local traders purchase low-cost goods and then re-sell them
elsewhere.
1 Frankie’s Hotel and Restaurant is one of the most popular in the city of Accra, right on the popular “Oxford
Street” of Osu, where life never sleeps. Its restaurant is open almost 24 h a day and widely known for its Ice
Cream Parlour.
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Fig. 3 Informal retailing activities around the Accra Mall. Source: Martin Oteng-Ababio, December 2014
Our study further established that it is not just the major international and local
players that operate in the Mall; there is considerable evidence that a vibrant hive of
informal activities has also emerged around the Mall as depicted in Fig. 3. Many of
these informal traders generally operate as links in supply chains, procuring their goods
from the wholesale outlets in the Mall and retailing them mainly at night at terms and
conditions that suit their clients. This suggests that the informal traders and the Mall
“do not exist in isolation, rather they interact and affect each other’s development”
(Rogerson 1995, p. 168). Significantly, our interviews uncovered the broad geograph-
ical origins and patterns of the retailer structure in the Mall. They revealed that the
successful outcomes of the new mall concept (discontinuity) are dependent on
burgeoning informal trading activities (continuity).
The taxi and trotro2 (minibus) drivers, who operate according to ‘turfs’, readily come
to mind, as do the typically side line activities such as the local restaurants (chop bars),
vulcanizing shops, makeshifts stalls and hawkers, which target the low-income earners
who work at or visit the Mall. Such informal activities have for a long time maintained
the vast majority of the urban population, a subject on which extensive literature exists
(Lindel 2010; Myers 2011; Obeng-Odoom 2011).
Accra Mall and the Space Economy
The Mall’s impact on the city’s geographical space may be very extensive, but our
study can gauge only the number of visitors to the Mall on a daily basis. The Mall
management estimates that approximately 18,900 people visit daily, but the number
reaches 23,000 on weekends. The age distribution of the respondents is shown in
Fig. 4.
The figure indicates that most of our respondents were youth within the 30-year and
below cohort (constituting 59 % of respondents). Apart from the youth predominance,
the result also shows they come from within and outside the Accra Metropolitan
Assembly. In terms of regional distributions, Greater Accra recorded 92 % of the total
respondents, while the rest are spread between Central (2 %) and Eastern regions,
2 Tro-tro originated from a local (Ga) language “tro” which means three pence (pence being the penny) and a
catch-all phrase for any public transport vehicle that is privately owned and can be hailed at points along its
route. In the colonial days, the mass transit vehicle charged passengers three pence (coins used during the
colonial days) per trip, and thus were referred to as “tro-tros”, and the name have struck ever since.
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
Fig. 4 The age distribution of respondents
Ashanti as well as Western registering 1 % each. The study recorded 3 % foreign
presence, mainly from the West Africa sub-region. During interviews with the Mall
management, it was revealed that between 10 and 15 organized shopping tourist groups
from neighbouring communities and countries visit, and this echoes what Lofland
(1998, p. 9) calls “a world of strangers”, where individuals in co-presence are “per-
sonally unknown or only categorically known to one another”. Whatever the real
numbers are, the multitude of people converging on the Mall daily is phenomenal.
The sphere of influence of the Mall is highly unequal (more highly concentrated
within the three nearby regions surrounding Greater Accra). Our results further show
that, at the district level, Accra (the primary catchment area) experienced the greatest
benefit. Thus, approximately 49 % of respondents typically travel within the metro-
politan area, while Tema (14.3 %), Adenta (9.7 %), Ashiaman (4.4 %), and Ga-South
(3.8 %) follow in that order (Fig. 5). Principally, these assemblies are within a 29-km
radius of the Mall. That said, the study nonetheless captured 0.1 % respondents each
from Obuasi (300 km), Ho (200 km) and Suhum Kraboa Kotaa (100 km) assemblies.
We suspect this segment to be part of the 10–15 organized tourist groups who visit the
Mall from the countryside and beyond on a daily basis.
Fig. 5 Districts where respondents live
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M. Oteng-Ababio, I.K. Arthur
Turning to the purpose for visiting the Mall, we found that 51 % of the respondents
visit the Mall for shopping, 21 % come to transact business (including informal
meetings with friends and families) and 16 % come with an entertainment agenda.
Table 1 outlines the various age cohorts of the respondents and their reasons for
interfacing with the Mall.
The table shows that over 45 % of our respondents visit the Mall for reasons other
than shopping per se. It was established, for example, that the youth make use of the
entertainment facilities within the Mall because of the relatively reasonable prices of
games compared with other places in Accra. By inference, the Mall encourages and
facilitates social interaction among the citizenry for two main reasons:
& It contains several places where people can gather, sit, eat, talk, entertain or stand
for socializing, where restaurants, entertainments sector, cinema and window shop-
ping are the main activities people pay attention to.
& It has a pleasant atmosphere day and night during the whole year because of its air-
conditioning, which creates a congenial environment for people to gather and
socialize in.
Suffice it to add that the choice of a preferred shopping place is not a rational
decision and based only on pricing but is based on a compromise satisfying economic,
social and psychological needs, in which the perception of being respected and
recognized plays a major role (Alwitt 1995). In addition, the concept of buying
‘international brands’ is usually revered by the youth, and brands from the US and
UK are perceived to be of greater quality than local brands. The relatively high
representation of adults (above age 50) engaged in shopping is not surprising, as most
pensioners, for example, know that the money they spend on any product has to be well
spent and they therefore prefer to buy trusted and well-known brands.
Surprisingly, approximately 30 % of the operators in the Mall expressed preference
and support for the informal trading and questioned whether the formal sector alone can
provide the needed employment for the teeming unemployed youth in Accra. A
middle-aged interviewee summarized the situation:
It’s important to note that the informal sector is not only the domain of the urban
poor. Many middle-class people greatly benefit from the economic activities
Table 1 Respondents’ age category and reasons for visiting the Mall
Age cohort/purpose Business Entertainment Restaurant Shopping Other
Below 20 51 65 10 147 36
21–30 230 196 35 561 97
31–40 89 41 7 203 25
41–50 21 10 2 46 5
Above 50 6 4 0 17 4
Grand total 397 316 54 974 167
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
carried on outside the formal sectors. It serves as a mode of urban transformation
for many places.
Despite its seemingly large sphere of influence, we have no independent way of
determining the Mall’s contribution to the overall urban economy. However, checks
with the Ghana Revenue Authority indicate that ten shops operating in the Mall
generated thousands of Ghana cedis in state sale tax revenue since 2012 (see Table 2).
In addition, the Mall’s related employment accounted for approximately 800 jobs in
2013, an increase of 190 % from 275 jobs in 2010 (personal interview with the Mall’s
manager, 2014). Apart from the monetary contribution to the economy, 167 of our
respondents indicated that they use the Mall for other purposes. For example, during
the fieldwork a respondent confessed: “I sometimes use the parking lots of shopping
malls; it is free and safe, and close to my destination [private office near the Mall]”. We
also observed on many occasions during the fieldwork situations that elderly couples
visit the Mall just for a walk, perhaps owing to the safe and serene atmosphere it
provides.
From the foregoing, the Mall’s economic space qualities within the city (and
beyond) have become apparent. According to Gehl (2007), such a space in an urban
setting serves three vital functions: as meeting place, market place and connection of
space. Our results demonstrate that, as a meeting place, the Mall is the scene for
exchange of social information of all kinds. As marketplace, it serves as a venue for
exchange of goods and services. And finally, the Mall provides access to connections
between all the functions of the city—the wholesale and retail chains. In this sense, the
Mall has become an additional niche for the better-financed and the so-called business
tycoons in society, who use it to perpetuate their business interests (Miriam 2008).
Discussions: Are Shopping Malls Sweeping Away Informal Retail Activities?
Our study sought to establish not only the role of the new malls in the local economy
but also their possible ramifications on the traditional retail structures. In other words,
Table 2 Sales tax revenue generated from ten sampled shops operating in the Mall
TIN number Taxpayer name 2012 2013 2014
C0002098636 Accra Mall Pharmacy Limited 8,704.34 107,193.69 38,702.39
C000285421X Consolidated Franchises Gh. Ltd 165,970.19 422,897.58 161,179.50
C0003628280 Decorland (Gh) Ltd 29,370.18 96,306.75 169,606.83
C0002854406 Enda Foods 47,601.33 74,882.73 150,388.52
C0003395499 Fast Forward Investment Gh. Ltd – – 4,000.00
C0001489232 Galaxxxy Prefumery Ltd – – 51,432.49
C0002854805 Master Meats Gh. Ltd 72,489.31 293,818.11 146,987.50
C0002854937 Palace Home Décor Ltd 6,109.08 75,022.18 90,275.05
C0002855143 Silverbird Entertainment Gh. Ltd 191,732.95 93,159.73 138,130.62
C0003643638 Vasore Forex Bureau 95,866.48 46,579.87 69,065.31
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M. Oteng-Ababio, I.K. Arthur
we questioned whether the emerging malls can crowd out their already ‘fortified’
predecessors. We noted that high land prices in cities have discontinued the lateral
spread of markets and popularized ‘vertical malls’, in which spaces for retailing are
configured over a number of storeys accessible by elevators and/or escalators, making
malls an integral part of the economic and social fabric of their communities. Similarly,
we counted approximately 30 stalls and more than 100 traders using make-shifts
stalls and individually supplied tables, crates and boxes during the night, providing
a convenient and affordable option for many residents. Characteristically, the
infrastructure provision in the informal sector is in most cases extremely poor—
such areas are neither properly cleaned nor is there access to water, electricity or
sanitation services. Demand for space has resulted in a large number of traders
sitting on the pavements along the road, causing irritating traffic congestion
particularly during rush hour.
We noted a thriving informal trade that has organically emerged around the Mall and
heavily dependent on the traffic of shoppers, a phenomenon also observed by Rogerson
(1995) in Johannesburg’s inner city. We also established a direct link between the Mall
and the informal retail activities, especially among the operators of mobile phones and
food vendors. Significantly, most of these informal markets source their wares from the
wholesale outlets within the Mall and offer more convenient trading hours or credit
facilities to their clientele. Their operations, which extend way beyond midnight, attract
customers not only among the working middle class who cannot brave the day traffic to
visit the Mall from their working places but also those from the countryside who travel
at night to buy at wholesale prices to re-sell in their respective communities during the
day.
During our interactions, about two thirds of our interviewees who indicated had no
other income apart from what they do revealed that although the Mall, by its architec-
tural design and operations, has recreated the complexity and vitality of the urban
experience without the noise, dirt and at times confusion, its continuous survival is very
much anchored on the continuous operations of the informal sector. A cloth seller
remarked:
The Mall has helped in exposing us to customers from various parts of the city
who cannot visit the Mall in the day... We now do not only retail goods; others
also buy in bulk from us. Today, many of us get goods on credit from the Mall
once you are seen as trustworthy. Indeed, we sell most of their imports for them in
the night, and my family live off what I make here.
A nearby ‘bubbling and bustling’ 24-h lorry station (courtesy of the Mall) has
designated stands for food vendors. These vendors constantly strive to offer meal
combinations at affordable prices and the opportunity for their clients to make preferred
choices (combinations of food). A food vendor remarked:
Even though my initial target market was the trotro drivers, workers of the Mall
now represent a sizable proportion. They patronize my food because it is
customer-friendly and very affordable. We also provide a one-stop food joint
for the many young guys who visit the Mall especially on public holidays and this
is how I survive.
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
With regard to members’ relationship with the city authorities, one elderly woman
among the focus group discussants reported sadly:
This is my fulltime job and I started selling here when the area was very
undeveloped. There were no threats of eviction. It is an irony that those of us
doing petty trading for survival are being accused of disrupting the customer base
of the Mall, which is firmly established. I think that the debate should be not
about regulation versus deregulation as such, but rather about the optimal design
and implementation of labour regulations in country- and time-specific contexts.
Highlighting the importance of the informal sector, the chairperson of a newly
formed transport union at the station remarked:
The growth of the informal sector is nourished by the influx of migrants from the
region’s surrounding agglomerations. With the formal sector unable to accom-
modate such large numbers, the informal sector becomes the primary source of
employment. Without the economic opportunities generated by such activities,
the poor would certainly become larger burdens for the urban authorities. Indeed,
this is how about 60 % of residents of Accra survive.
Suffice it to say that although earlier studies (see Chung and Palop-Casado 2001)
alleged that malls tend to force smaller shops out of business and thus create
unemployment in the city, our study points to the contrary. Indeed, our result agrees
with what Crawford (2002, p. 24) terms “urbanity and publicness,” with shopping
malls becoming a part of daily urban life as multifunctional urban public spaces,
financed largely by international investors and very popular with shoppers from the
emerging middle class. Yet, at the same time, our research shows hidden interconnec-
tions between the Mall and the surrounding informal markets and even some citywide
multi-storey shops. We established that there is no one retail structure per se but
multiple (diverse) retail activities that are interconnected in the urban space economy.
There are several feed streams, and for some companies, operating from the Mall is a
significant opportunity that allows uninterrupted circulation within the entire urban
space.
Concluding Remarks
Our study demonstrates that the economic success of the emerging malls in Accra has
primarily more to do with informal retail continuities. To put it another way, factors
located geographically, economically and politically outside the corridors of the Mall
can impact what happens inside it. Continuity in this context has another dimension:
the relationship between the Mall and its formal ‘retail outlets’ within the city beyond is
still mediated by informal distribution outlets. It is therefore essential to maintain
multiple perspectives on the Mall and traditional retail activities simultaneously, al-
though the vitality and viability of these sectors remain subjects for further research.
We concede the difficulty in ascertaining the Mall’s overall influence on the
periphery. However, we have presented enough evidence to show that apart from the
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M. Oteng-Ababio, I.K. Arthur
Mall’s generating taxes and employment, the informal retailing activities around it are
major sources of livelihood and a potentially significant contributor to the alleviation of
urban poverty. We see some level of mutualism in the Mall’s operations and the
emerging retail activities, which contradicts the traditional frameworks for understand-
ing urban retail structure (Wilson et al. 1981). The new scenario does not fit neatly into
the core–periphery dyad, but rather it illustrates how informal retail activities are linked
to global markets and finance in ways that have been invisible to urban policy makers
in the past.
Faced with many hurdles, including the exploding popularity of informality in
general—employing about 80 % of the working population in the country (Osei-
Boateng and Ampratum 2011)—and the perceived urban blight, city authorities have
the responsibility to ensure that the malls do not run the risk of emptying. Managers of
the Mall should also seek new solutions to generate the needed traffic. The current issue
facing malls in the Western hemisphere was highlighted by Foley and Jopson (2013),
which reported that almost 200 out of 1,300 malls across the US are going out of
business.
The continuity of the mall concept is not in disrepute, but recent dynamics have
compelled developers to discontinue their traditional modus operandi and promote
brand interaction and enhanced architectural appeal (Evans 2013). Critical to the
success of the Mall is the need to attract a number of compatible retailers. There is
therefore the need to design elegant apartments which include appreciable green spaces
and create a centrally located food court consisting of various fast-food restaurants to
entice visitors to lengthen their stay. This will provide a space for postmodern con-
sumers to broaden their experience with a wide range of goods and services (Pine and
Gilmore 1999; Carù and Cova 2003).
The Mall needs to embark on a new market orientation, targeting specific consumers
and using multiple channels, including the informal sector. Operators may also take
advantage of the growing usage of information technologies to provide remote shop-
ping experiences, whereby their clients can enjoy services delivered to their doorsteps
without having to leave their residences (Burton 2002). As stated earlier, the interface
with informal retail activities will be a key element in the success of the Mall. It is
already known that the Mall has expanded its influence and reaches both into and out of
the city, mediated by the informal retail system. What remains unknown is what the
cost of this dynamic will be in the future? Adopting a communicative approach in
future planning processes can help resolve the dilemma, since Accra is not immune to
what Comaroff and Comaroff (2006, p. 3) called the “triumphal spread of neoliberal
capitalism”. In other words, local knowledge should be taken into consideration in
future planning. We can only assume that the current pattern will continue and Accra’s
public space quality will become more important. The existing malls will have to
regenerate themselves to compete and to increase the overall quality of the urban
experience.
Ultimately, our findings call for new urban theories that fully explain the phenomena
of urban informality—a phenomenon almost absent from current theories such as the
urban ecology of the Chicago school (Park et al. 1925) and the postmodernist urbanism
of the Los Angeles School (Davis 1985; Soja 1989), both of which are rooted in cities
in developed countries. We do not intend to ‘preach’ that malls are without drawbacks.
Such inherent externalities are not the preserve of developing countries like Ghana
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Scale, Scope and Complexities of the Space Economy
alone. However, environmentally, there is evidence to the effect that the Mall creates
intense noise, air pollution and traffic congestion, a point succinctly articulate by
Addae-Bosompra (2009). The increasingly uncontrolled informal trading activities,
coupled with ineffective management of sanitation by the metropolitan authorities have
also left the streets, pavements and other open spaces around the mall posing serious
environmental risks, not only for the occupants of the mall but visitors alike.
Additionally, the supposed greenfield around the Mall has been consumed by a large
asphalted car parking corridor and unauthorized commercial car park. This undermines
the liveability of the area, especially its green open space, and minimizes the possibility
of developing other urban experiential land use activities. We suggest in conclusion that
although malls have their pros and cons, the industry has proved that when well
planned, implemented and monitored, its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages,
and therefore city authorities as well as planners must strive to consider these exter-
nalities in the planning process.
Acknowledgments We acknowledge the assistance of all anonymous reviewers for their comments and
suggestions. We are particularly grateful to students of 2013/2014 academic year Level 400 GEOG 414 and
GEOG 415 class (at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana), who
contributed tremendously in the quantitative survey. However, the contents and interpretations in this article
are the sole responsibility of the authors.
Conflict of Interest The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship and/or publication of this article.
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