performance - Why is ArcPy script slow?

I have a simple arcpy script to update a field in a point shapefile with info from the polygon feature that it is within. It takes 9 minutes to do 100 points in arcpy but a spatial join in arcmap is instantaneous. I'm sure there is a quick established way to solve this problem. Can someone point me in the right direction?

import took 0:00:07.085000
extent took 0:00:05.991000
one pt loop took 0:00:03.780000
one pt loop took 0:00:03.850000
one pt loop took 0:00:03.791000



import datetime
t1 = datetime.datetime.now()
import arcpy
t2 = datetime.datetime.now()
print "import took %s" %  ( t2-t1)
#set up environment
arcpy.env.workspace = "data\\"
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True

desc = arcpy.Describe("parcels.shp")

ext = desc.Extent
extent = (ext.XMin,ext.XMax,ext.YMin,ext.YMax)
t3 = datetime.datetime.now()
print "extent took %s" %  (t3 -t2)
fc = arcpy.CreateRandomPoints_management("", "malls.shp", "", ext, 100, "", "POINT", "")
arcpy.AddField_management("malls.shp", 'ParcelID', 'LONG')

rows = arcpy.UpdateCursor('malls.shp',"","",'ParcelID')
for row in rows:
    t4 = datetime.datetime.now()

    pt = row.Shape.getPart()
    for polyrow in arcpy.SearchCursor('parcels.shp'):
        t6 = datetime.datetime.now()
        poly = polyrow.getValue('Shape')
        if extent[0]            if poly.contains(pt):
                print "works"
                row.ParcelID = polyrow.Parcels_ID
                rows.updateRow(row)
                break #we can stop looking for matches since

        t7 = datetime.datetime.now()
        "a full poly loop took %s" % (t7-t6)
    t5 = datetime.datetime.now()
    print "one pt loop took %s" % (t5-t4)


print datetime.datetime.now() -t1

Answer

If you need to create a second cursor for parcels.shp, do so outside of the loop for your first cursor. As it stands, your script is creating a new cursor object for each row in malls.shp which is what's costing you all that processing time.

...

rows = arcpy.UpdateCursor('malls.shp',"","",'ParcelID')
polyrows = arcpy.SearchCursor('parcels.shp')
for row in rows:
    t4 = datetime.datetime.now()
    pt = row.Shape.getPart()
    for polyrow in polyrows:
...