
Originally Posted by
Jun aka Pekto
Maybe it's in the number of people. Looking at Wikipedia, Metro Manila has an area of 636 sq km and a population of 11.3M. The density per sq km is 17.8K people
Compare that to say, Tucson AZ which has a city area of 505 sq km and a population of 516K. The density per sq km is 2.7K people.
That's the city itself. Outside the city spread out all over at an area maybe 4x-5x the size of Tucson itself are another 930k people.
At its most crowded, Tucson's population density is still much less than Manila's. I'm not sure if that's a criteria for mall-building. But, if I was building a mall, I'd consider it.
We have 2 major malls plus several smaller ones, one at the north, the other at the south, all within city limits. Most homeowners outside the city limits are against malls in their area because they tend to lower property value.