https://maps.google.com/maps?q=shopping+mall&hl=en&l...
These results seem pretty lousy and not particularly different from those from Istanbul.
They are usually huge. I was very surprise because in my home country, Portugal, we used to believe we had a lot of malls (we do) but Istanbul is just unbelievable.
Back to Istanbul, in Levent (near the financial district) you can have three right next to each other. On one of my stays there my hotel was actually around the corner from one of this malls.
I also have some difficulty with the idea that people are heading out to the streets, risking life and limb, in multiple cities across Turkey just because of a mall in Istanbul.
The notion that we can figure this out just by hitting google maps seems obviously wrong.
* The original claim on the blog
* Some research a poster here helpfully did using Google maps and web searches to verify
* Stories from multiple people who have visited Istanbul in person and can compare to other european cities
... you are still banging the drum of "You can't answer a question just by checking the internet!"
I wonder: what kind of evidence would get you to the point where you might believe such a claim?
And yup, there are a phenomenal number of shopping malls, some only a couple of hundred meters from another.
I did spot check quite a few, looked at a few of the websites, and they are all multi-level, large shopping malls.
In fact this one is a mere 300m from Gezi Park: http://www.demirorenistiklal.com/
The great thing about the internet is that it is possible to get a sense of whether a claim is true or not very swiftly.
On the one fact you doubt and then use as an example to undermine the rest of the argument, a quick search verifies that claim. (Should you revisit the doubt you extended to the rest of the argument in light of some evidence to the claims that you used to undermine it?)
Of course there is emotion in there too (the government selling the nation to corporations), but we're mostly rational and will spot that surely.
The fundamental question is whether or not the reports in general speak of a true event, and overwhelmingly they do appear so. The level of consistency in the very many reports and sources is too much to be attributable and dismissed as any individual being emotional... of course they are emotional; some of their friends, family and fellow citizens are dead, others are in hospital or jail.