A Mall for who?

Just two blocks from my apartment is a beautiful mall called Qui Centro. This mall would be a very nice mall in the United States, filled with a combination of ecuadorian brands and brands like Calvin Kline and Diesel. However, in a huge surpise to me, it is just as expensive as an American mall if not more. This is in a country where things are generally around 1/3 to 1/4 as expensive as the United States, and where the average salary is 200 dollars per month. I cannot even afford to shop in this mall, and I make 3 to 4 times the amount of the average ecuadorian. This quickly raised the question for me, who can afford to shop here? The mall is always full of ecuadorians, it is not being supported by tourists. Amazingly, this is not the only mall of its type. There are 3 malls probably within a 2 mile radius exactly like this one, often with the same stores, and at least as expensive, all supported by the .5 % of ecuadorians who can actually afford to shop there. The money divide here is truly huge, even bigger than in the United States. These people live in a seperate section of town, shop in different places, drive their cars everywhere, live a completely seperate life from most ecuadorians. It is almost as if they are not living in the same country. I will have more examples of this later, but is one of the issues in Ecuador which is proving most disturbing to me.