Influenced by the fully enclosed, drive-in shopping malls that had begun to emerge in North America in the 1960s, the Shopping City was to house other amenities such as a cinema, post office, library and pub. It was also close to the law courts, the police station and the hospital. The shopping complex itself was to be linked by pedestrian bridges and footpaths to some of the new, modern estates of the New Town, such as the radical but ill-fated Southgate Estate.