Shopping Malls as Quasi-Public Spaces and Third Places in the Urban Environment of Almaty: Social Interaction, Accessibility and Urban Identity

Across the post-Soviet space, the disappearance and commercialisation of traditional public realms have shifted everyday social life toward privately owned, publicly used environments. This study examines whether and how contemporary shopping malls function as quasi-public spaces and “third places” in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. Drawing on Oldenburg’s third-place theory and debates on the privatisation of the public realm, a mixed-methods design combined a visitor questionnaire (n = 412) across five malls, 40 hours of behavioural mapping, and 30 semi-structured interviews with visitors and mall managers. Results indicate that, beyond consumption, malls host substantial non-commercial sociability: 56.4% of respondents reported visiting primarily for dining, leisure, or meeting others rather than shopping, and the majority agreed that malls feel comfortable and broadly accessible. At the same time, only a minority unambiguously regarded the mall as a “public space”, and perceptions of inclusiveness varied significantly with age, income, and mode of arrival. Malls thus operate as conditional and negotiated third places whose publicness is real but managed. The paper argues that recognising malls as de facto social infrastructure has direct implications for socially sustainable urban planning in rapidly transforming Central Asian cities, and outlines design and policy measures to strengthen genuine inclusiveness.