ABSTRACT
In early 2001, in the slipstream of decentralization policies, the sleepy, provincial city of Manado in East Indonesia, with a population of 500,000, witnessed, all of a sudden, but not unexpectedly, the arrival of the first shopping malls. Modernity at last! As no flat areas of sufficient size were considered suitable in this relatively chaotic city, the municipal government approved land expansions into the sea for the construction of Manado’s first, ambitious commercial mega-development: the Boulevard Commercial Project (BCP). 1 At the heart of the BCP, a series of seven shopping malls were planned, differentiating this area from the rest of Manado and creating a duality of new land-old city. 2
