Geography of consumption I

Not only is shopping melting into everything, but everything is melting into shopping. Through successive waves of expansion – each more extensive and pervasive than the previous – shopping has methodically encroached on a widening spectrum of territories so that it is now, arguably, the defining activity of public life . . . . Shopping is the medium by which the market has solidified its grip on our spaces, buildings, cities, activities, and lives. It is the material outcome of the degree to which the market economy has shaped our surroundings, and ultimately ourselves. (Leong, 2001: 129)