Gul reignites debate on Turkey’s shopping malls

During his recent official visit to Italy, Turkish President Abdullah Gul tweeted praise for Rome’s beauty, but when he commended its lack of shopping malls and skyscrapers, he reignited perennial Turkish bickering on the topic.

While part of the population and government see shopping malls as entertaining and beneficial for Turkey's economy and society, others express concern for the destruction of small shopkeepers’ and artisans’ business, and some blame shopping malls for contributing to alienation, slamming them as the “holy shrines of consumer capitalism.”