Shopping for community?

On the weekend I heard someone suggest that people might spend so much time in shopping centres and malls because they want to be around other people and thus feel like they are part of a community. (I think it was from Trav's CD of Erwin McManus' Brisbane seminar, on the way back from Cobden.) I remember that when I lived in Melbourne I used to go to Knox City a lot when I was feeling lonely, to be around other people, even though I ususally didn't know any of them.