[wil421]

Agreed. The more popular new shopping areas I’ve been are outdoor “malls”. Shopping mixed with outdoors, and as you said greenery, art, music and novelties.

A lot of indoor malls are dying. I can remember when the same empty places exploded in the 90s.

[treeman79]

Lots of parts of the country have unpleasant weather much of the year.

[colinmhayes]

We've got outdoor malls in Chicago. They're more popular than the indoor malls even in the winter.

[Groxx]

A "downtown with landscaping" basically. They're great, maybe with the exception of when it's windy + raining.

[steelframe]

> Lots of parts of the country have unpleasant weather much of the year.

I spent a large chunk of my formative years in a desert climate in the southwest. The sort of place where you would try to stay in air-conditioned spaces as often as possible during the summer. The regional mall was a huge air-conditioned enclosure where people would go just to sit around for hours on end with the occasional stroll through a department store.

In the 30 years since it first opened 2 of the 5 "anchor stores" closed. Other than that it's just been plugging along. One of the reviews I recently read for it was, "A great place to go when you're in a desert and need a mall."

[SkyPuncher]

I live in the northern Midwest. Our mall closed this past year and is being made into some sort of mixed-use outdoor space.

The reality is the cold weather doesn't really bother people who are use to it. I'm happy to spend time outside jumping store to store because I'll be dressed appropriately.

[jleyank]

Within limits. Some of the large cities in the cold parts of Canada have their malls underground connected by subway or metro. With some planning, non-natives can stay underground for months. It takes a little getting used to walking around in -20c weather or colder.

Across the border in Vermont, some of the strip malls have a glass-enclosed front layer for similar thermal protection.

[wombatpm]

That was the impetus for Minnesota to enclose Brookdale Mall in Brooklyn Center (1962), and Southdale in Edina MN (1956 and back drop for the movie Mall Rats).