I decide to return to the highway from St Mary's station by a slightly different route. Almost
immediately I encounter a medium sized shopping mall into which much of St Mary's retail business
has retreated. This helps to explain, of course why the Queen Street CBD precinct looks so poorly.
Not all of the "main street" shopping districts in western Sydney look as bad as they do in (say)
Penrith and St Marys but greater personal mobility, business rationalisation and a consumer preference
for indoor shopping seem to have combined to close the original commercial precincts down.