African Malls as a Symbol of the Consumer Class

Reports about three days of terror in Nairobi suggested that the Westgate shopping mall was exclusive to Westerners and Kenya's wealthy elite. Pictures of terrified, escaping shoppers showed people from all walks of life. But malls are "increasingly central to urban African life, the social hearts of the continent's rapidly expanding cities." That's according to Eve Fairbanks in the New Republic magazine.