Shopping Malls in Mexico

For the last 5 centuries, Mexican cities have been modeled after Spanish cities: with a central plaza consisting of an open area, normally with a park or benches or something surrounded by the most important buildings in the city - the cathedral, bank, government offices, and sometimes a rich person's house or a museum. The plaza would be like the spoke of a wheel with roads veering off in multiple directions from this plaza. In very large cities, smaller plazas throughout would be in the centers of specific neighborhoods, and house smaller churches, government buildings, etc.
Hanging out in the plaza is an important activity for Spaniards and Mexicans. In warmer climates, it's very important to mingle outside (this is very different than how northern Europeans and midwestern Americans have traditionally met with friends). So everyone would "grab the old ladies and pack up the babies" and walk throughout the plaza - where kids will play ball and old guys play checkers and couples smooch and ladies gossip and families buy ice cream, etc.
In modern Mexico, Shopping Malls are becoming the plazas of the middle and upper classes. In these places, they can do all the mingling they used to do in the plazas, but without inclement weather and beggars and such.
(I hear Wal-Mart is becoming the plazas of the lower and working classes, but I'm not sure.)
On Sunday we went to the mall near our house, which is more "American" than our US malls! It has a 2 food courts, movie theatre, ice rink, 2 coffee houses, bowling alley, casino, salons, snack bars, cell phone kiosks, very clean bathrooms, and a LOT of stores.
But unlike US malls, which are full of tweens and teens and bored husbands and housewives, this mall was hopping! Dads were carrying babies in snuglis and pushing them in strollers. Old ladies were snacking on ice cream cones and watching their grandkids ice skate. Couples were going out to a movie and then out to dinner. Entire families (sometimes 3 generations) were relaxing together, enjoying their Sunday afternoon.
Watching them did make me a little homesick for our own families. But mainly I was surprised at how much a mall shows about a culture.
In the US, malls are all about the shopping.
In Mexico, malls are all about the relationships.
Kinda made me wonder.