When You've Seen One Cribbs Causeway, You've Seen The Mall. Or, Have You?

The Bristol vs Cribbs Causeway Debate: Urban Decay and the Cost of Modern Life.

(Fictional image)

Bristol is crumbling in the wake of Cribbs Causeway. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the city isn't trying to pull its own commercially minded socks up—it's just that Bristol feels like the poorer relation. While we're faffing about with minor cosmetic fixes, Cribbs is out there securing its legacy. The Mall itself is getting a glow-up, adding new shops, a hotel, and a public square, as if its current retail dominance wasn't enough. The wider Cribbs/Patchway area is slated for significant residential and commercial development, including up to 1,000 new homes and, presumably for those too exhausted to continue the shopping "experience," an 86-bed extra care home.

By the way, if you’re still pondering over the title, don’t worry, you’ll have had plenty of time to catch up by the end of today's journey through satire.

Anyway, back to Bristol it is, and I can almost feel your buttock muscles clenching in anticipation of what I'm about to say. So, if you haven't already, now might be a good time for a quick bathroom visit: and don't forget to wash your hands on completion! To be fair, Bristol has its ups and downs, and the Downs feels like the perfect place to begin.

As I sit here, munching through these boneless chicken thighs, and ponder on how the birds managed to stand, let alone walk with such quintessential parts of their skeletal frame missing, and the almost sadistic pleasure I get from causing any vegan readers to virtually throw up while reading my preferred dietary predilection, I share a certain envy with those who live the urban life, on Bristol Downs, and elsewhere.

These 'van dwellers' as they're called, can be by no means idyllic, but their homes are 'theirs,' and this is part of the problem in a society that increasingly wants, or, seems to want to take ownership of every part of our lives; and remain within the system, as it were. You know, trapped by consumerism, bureaucracy, and societal expectations. Through systems of finance, regulation, and expectation, that's slowly co-opting our lives: and an even slower and deeply insidious loss of personal freedom.

The Big Brother World.

While the van dwellers strive to preserve what they have and hold dear, the antithesis of this is a world of commercially driven empire building. This is a Big Brother world, where every part of our lives is becoming observed, by one means or another. And it's one they don't have to live in. Why would you, when the very foundations of urban living seem rigged against you?

The Illusion of Security.

Perhaps I'm not being cynical at all. Maybe, just maybe, this is all part of a larger plan: to make people feel insecure in a way that creates a need for what's sold as security. This is an insidious means of asserting control. The idea is that an authority—be it a government, a corporation, or a societal system—will deliberately create or amplify a sense of vulnerability. By doing so, it can then offer a false sense of security in the form of its own solutions, thereby solidifying its control. This strategy works because it plays on a fundamental human need for safety and certainty. When people feel anxious or afraid, they are more likely to seek out and cling to anything that promises to make them feel safe, even if it means giving up a degree of personal freedom. The authority can then present itself as the indispensable protector, the solution to the very problem it helped create.

Philosophical Underpinnings.

Notable authors and thinkers have explored similar ideas. Alan Watts, in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity, argues that our very desire for security is the source of our deepest anxieties, suggesting that a truly free life comes from embracing uncertainty. Additionally, philosophers like Michel Foucault have written extensively on how power operates not through brute force, but through subtle, insidious forms of control that normalise certain behaviours and thought processes, effectively making us willing participants in our own subjugation.

The institutional control I’m talking about isn’t just about where you shop or where you live; it's also about how you live. It's in the astronomical cost of utilities, where water companies like Thames Water and South West Water are rinsing the consumer dry without giving value for money. They're more concerned with rinsing profits for shareholders than reinvesting to prevent the pollution of our waterways. It's a perfect example of a system where we're forced to pay for a service that is, in many cases, failing. It’s yet another insidious financial burden, just like the mortgages and rent on the homes people can barely afford.

And let's not forget the students, financially rinsed with debts they'll unlikely pay off in a lifetime. They're anchored by a government that's deliberately pushing them into a lifetime of debt, so it's little wonder that many, once they've achieved their degrees, will opt to move abroad to avoid this financial imprisonment.

Various entities are constantly gathering data about us. Governments and their agencies engage in surveillance for national security and law enforcement, monitoring communications, online activity, and location data. Social media platforms collect vast amounts of personal information through user profiles, posts, and interactions, which can be used for targeted advertising, content personalisation, and even influencing behaviour.

Consumer organisations track our purchasing habits and preferences through loyalty programs, credit card transactions, and online browsing, often to tailor marketing campaigns and assess our creditworthiness. Additionally, internet service providers and tech companies log our online activity, including websites visited and search queries, which can be used for targeted advertising, personalised recommendations, and even sold to third parties.

This is increasingly becoming an age of freedom versus control, autonomy versus surveillance, and what's happening at Cribbs Causeway is just one small battle in this larger war for personal liberty. The issue is not just about one shopping mall. It's a systemic problem that permeates every aspect of modern life. A front line in a conflict between freedom and control.

Of course, we're being drip fed with persuasive arguments that it's all for the good, and, to an extent, I would agree with the argument for more housing needed for an increasing population, who wouldn't? But maybe I'm being too cynical, because the thought of building more homes for people who can barely afford them with money they haven't got, really sticks with me. It makes me question the very need to build more homes, not in the sense of them being unnecessary, but in the thought of more and more identikit developments being erected as a further means of institutional financial control over people's lives and their spending. They're luring us into a system where we're financially trapped from the start, a new generation of indentured servants paying for homes with money they don't have. After all, with online shopping and delivery being so much more convenient, and physical retail in decline, why the need to build an even bigger mall? It feels like an act of commercial defiance against a changing world, a final, desperate gasp for a bygone era of consumerism.

So, as we all continue to pay for a world we can't afford, for a freedom we've already sold, I'll ask you this: when you've seen one Cribbs Causeway, you've seen the mall. But when you’ve seen the mall, what have you truly seen in yourself? You see, they're luring us into a system where the very freedom to buy and consume become the chains that bind us. Because in the end, the ultimate act of control isn’t stopping you from doing something; it's making you so grateful for the illusion of choice, you never stop to question if you're really free at all.

So, it begs the final question: are we so trapped in this big, shiny, expensive mall of a life, that we’ve forgotten the true cost of our convenience? Don't worry, though, there's a solution. I hear the parking is free on the Downs, for now, at least. Maybe I’ll see you there.