I don't think it's necessarily a shopping thing. I think people just expect to have a decent range of shops for regular stuff, a few malls here and there, nothing too exceptional. But even that seemed to be missing or the quality was just not there.

Not a big deal for me though, I dislike shopping anyway. Luckily there were lots of good watering holes around, though as I mentioned before I didn't see a lot of young people out on town downing pints.