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> Malls need to improve along a number of dimensions. Better dining, easier transportation or integration into live / work / play mixed use, and addition of grocery stores would make them better than Amazon. That's because no one implemented the original vision of the mall, at least in the US. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2015/05/07/victor_gruen_t... "He imagined designing an environment full of greenery and shops: an indoor plaza that could be an island of connection in the middle of the sprawl, one that would get people out of their cars in order to walk and stroll within them. He saw his structure as an architectural panacea—it would remedy environmental, commercial, and sociological problems with the creation of a single building. Gruen presented his a solution for America: the shopping mall. Gruen’s full vision for the mall was more than just shops. He imagined them as mixed-use facilities, with apartments, offices, medical centers, child care facilities, libraries, and (since it was the 1950s) bomb shelters. He wrote theoretical sketches of shopping malls long before he ever built one, but for a long time, none of his ideas came to fruition. Then in 1952, the owner of Dayton Company commissioned him to build the very first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center. It would be in Edina, Minnesota." Of course, if everything was enclosed instead of open air as envisioned, it would have been a pandemic nightmare |
Not a North American city mind you, but a true old development city.
Human scale. People first, not cars. Everything you need to live within walking distance.
This is the vast majority of Europe.