Towson Mall

I went to the Towson Town Center not too long ago to get a pair of hiking boots (more on that later). It's the only mall near Hopkins, so I've been there before, but this time I went in with my eyes trained on class. Going to the mall in Towson is always a particularly jarring experience for me — I come from a middle class household, and generally it's been my practice to try to avoid spending as much money as possible when there's something I need to buy (I'm more likely to choose Kohl's or Payless over Macy's and Nordstrom, for example). The Staten Island Mall back at home has plenty of stores and boutiques I would consider pretty upscale, like Macy's and Coach and Foot Locker, but it also has places like Sears and JC Penney which were more suited to my budget. I think the mall in Towson might be targeted toward an entirely different income bracket (or at least is open to the possibility that there are a class of people with shopping tastes above the rest of us plebians).

Towson Town Center - A magical mecca of rampant capitalism. Price labels not included.

Take a look at the directories for both: here's the directory for the Staten Island Mall, and here's the one for the Towson Town Center. Notice anything? Although some of the offerings are the same, I think that there's a marked difference in the cultural capital both places are trying to offer. Back home, I remember gaggles of high school girls traveling in packs to stores like Hot Topic, Aeropostale, and Hollister (those were all the rage back in high school). Towson doesn't have a Hot Topic or a Hollister; they're replaced by Louis Vuitton and Nordstrom. They don't even have a JC Penney or a Sears! While the Staten Island Mall is definitely more geared to somewhat affluent teens and their middle to upper-middle class parents, Towson skips out on the teen demographic entirely, instead focusing on the brands that relatively wealthy adults value.