Retail City
The Mall That Would Save America
“Destiny U.S.A., the retail-and-entertainment complex [being built] in upstate New York, aspires to be not only the biggest man-made structure on the planet but also the most environmentally friendly. Equal parts Disney World, Las Vegas, Bell Laboratories and Mall of America — with a splash of Walden Pond — the ‘retail city’ will include the usual shops and restaurants as well as an extensive research facility for testing advanced technologies and a 200-acre recreational biosphere…
[W]hile many environmentalists embrace Congel’s grand ideas, others are skeptical. ”How do you reconcile the glaring paradox of an ostensibly fossil-fuel-free development that requires tremendous amounts of fossil fuels to transport visitors to the site?” asks Ashok Gupta, an energy economist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Moreover, there is something eerily postmodern, even postenvironmental, about the whole of Congel’s project: the mega-mall is located on the fringes of the Adirondacks, but visitors will experience only virtual meadows, faux ponds, a river replica and a five-story imitation of a mountain peak.”