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Example of a small "strip mall".

Westgreen Shopping Plaza Meadowgreen, Confederation SDA Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

A strip mall (also called a plaza or mini-mall) is an open area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. They face major traffic arterials and tend to be self-contained with few pedestrian connections to surrounding neighborhoods.

In the U.S. and Canada, strip malls usually come in two sizes. The smaller variety is more common and often located at the intersection of major streets in residential areas; it caters to a small residential area. This type of strip mall is found in nearly every city or town in the U.S. and Canada; it is service-oriented and often contains a grocery store, video rental store, dry cleaner, small restaurant, and similar stores. In the past, pharmacies were often located next to the grocery stores, but are now usually contained within grocery stores. Gas stations, banks, and other businesses sometimes have their own free-standing buildings in the parking lot of the strip center.

The other variety of strip mall in the U.S. has large, big box retailers as the anchors, such as Wal-Mart or Target. They are sometimes referred to as power centers in the real estate development industry because they attract and cater to residents of an entire population area. The type of retailers may vary widely--from electronics stores to bookstores to home improvement stores. There are typically only a few of these type of strip malls in a city, compared to the grocery store-anchored strip mall. Some of these strip centers may only have three or four of these large retailers in them, while others may have a dozen or more major retailers.

Some strip malls are a hybrid of both of these types.

Strip malls vary widely in architecture. Older strip malls tend to have plain architecture with the stores arranged in a straight row; in some cases there are vacant stores. Newer strip malls are often built with elaborate architecture to blend in with the neighborhood or be more attractive. In some cases, strip malls are broken up into smaller buildings to encourage walking. Sometimes the buildings will wrap around the parking lot to hide the parking from the road or residential areas.

Due to land use issues, strip malls in the United Kingdom are typically found on the edges of cities on greenfield land sites, and are known as out of town shopping centres. Those in more urban areas (often brownfield land redeveloped sites) are more typically known as retail parks.

• In Defense of Strip Malls by Brad Edmonds.