Why "Fake" Downtowns Are The New Malls - Cheddar Explains 

The biggest problem I see with these is while they are walkable you can't walk to them. They are often along busy roads and divided from the neighborhoods they are intended to serve. Second problem is while there are garages at many of these, many still have crowded roads within making them unsafe for wandering children.

I definitely prefer these fake downtown over a shopping center that’s 90 percent parking lot with no walkability.

Critical difference to keep in mind: these are private retail spaces operated solely for commercial interests. It is all private property. There is no actual public space where the bill of rights applies: right to congregate; right to petition the government; right to speak even if the message is a dissenting one - or one that distracts people from shopping.

As someone who lives in Maryland outside of DC and grew up here, I've been to a lot of places like this. The only real sticking point I have with these, which you didn't mention, is that they are still VERY car-centric in their design, and there is little attempt, if any, to connect them to wider transit networks nearby. These are places you either live in and drive away from on a regular basis, or drive to from the suburbs. Since they are very difficult to access without cars, they are still a part of American urban planning that is keeping us attached to cars, and that sucks.

I live in one of these, and it’s filled with little independent shops. I love all the events and community gatherings that happen. Moving to this town meant leaving everyone I knew behind, and this makes it easier to find new friends and build community. I think it’s a step in the right direction. And if done carefully, it can be wonderful.

They need to have more mom & pop shops. Tired of season the big chain stores.

I think it's a step up from the ugliness of malls, but it's unfortunate we can't just do a better job of zoning and actually create real and better cities again. These places lack the diversity of style and intrigue that real towns offer. These stores also tend to cater more to corporate retailers and restaurants, which actually is only minimally beneficial to the local economy compared to local stores and restaurants.

I live near one of these places. I like to call them New Urbanist Communities. I really like them and I fully welcome them. My only problem is when they do not have transit access, and/or they do not have walking/biking paths leading to them, thus encouraging everyone to drive there, thereby totally defeating the purpose of the walkability aspect.

Its a good step towards the right direction. However, there's always this uncanniness to some of them. The worst of them has everything is dictated by the owner of the entire "town center" instead of the community. They are still private properties that can accept and reject certain businesses and social activities on their "public space."

I lived in Reston not too far from the town center. It was kind of a joke. It was right by the highway, surrounded by parking for the shops. As someone living a mile or so south it felt awkward to get into as you had to take the too wide Reston parkway to it, and I would have never biked there. Once you were there it was somewhat walkable, but you really had to drive to get there. It never felt like a town, just sort of a developer pipe dream with a few OK shops and a movie theater. Vienna, which was nearby, felt much more real and like I would expect a smaller town center to feel. And I actively biked places a lot when I lived in Vienna.

Living in Reston, totally agree with this, in fact if you look at the history of the mixed use town center, Reston VA was the first planned community like this in the ENTIRE united states. Quite interesting history

I think these areas are progress but they often still feel very fake. It is especially noticeable when all the stores are only from big brands.

It seems like a good idea in theory, but in reality it’s just an outdoor mall. They’re rarely made a walkable distance away from places, and they’re always filled with crappy expensive big box stores like Zara, forever 21, Lulu Lemon, etc.

The fact that people actually live there gives them a major survivability advantage over malls. If the trendy national retailers and restaurants close up and go, it will leave a nice space for a small business to start up.

How could someone not be for this? even if you are a die hard organic city person, this is a great stepping stone to get people more comfortable with a city like way of life. It gets people who might never have ventured out to actually engage with something resembling a community. So yeah, all good things, and hopefully it keeps evolving and getting better.

I'm not for or against so-called "fake town centers". That said, we can all agree that you're leading people on when you call them "fake town centers". I don't remember a time when the word "fake" wasn't seen as derogatory.

When the alternative for suburbs is big box strip malls, these “fake” town centers are a great alternative. Even if they start “fake”, they can become real over time if they spur additional medium and high density development in adjoining communities. Cheddar neatly left out the recent addition of Metro to Reston and Mosaic, which makes these locations hubs for public transit as well. Reston Town Center and Metro Silver Line is triggering transformation in adjoining neighborhoods. Malls never did that. Give it time. Everyone needs a place to live, not every job is in a core downtown (especially with remote work), and having options is good.

I was one of the first families to move into the mosaic district when it was first built. I can say from a kid's perspective, it's great. Theyre safer than the city, not boring like the suburbs. I was able to walk to target to get things my mom forgot, and it was easy for me to get an after school job in the center. I didn't need to have a car or have anyone worry about where I was. I had all of my high school dates very close to my home so I could leave if I felt uncomfortable, and all my friends liked hanging out around my house so I never had to worry about how I was getting home. They're great. As an adult, I now enjoy city life because it provides the same things, but it's safer because I'm an adult.

Truly horrifying. We should be moving away malls and shopping centers. This is like something from Logan’s run. The whole reason for pushing people into towns like this is to enable easier control. One doesn’t have to look hard to see this. Look beyond reality TV, Social Media and whether the game is on.

That lady hit the nail on the head. Those things are made for the sorts of people who choose to move to the suburbs.

My reaction could be summarized by “Compared to what?” Are we comparing them to shopping malls? Big urban city apartments? Small suburban satellite town apartments? Suburban house? I prefer to live in a more historic city center, because I do appreciate original architecture. But I can also see why someone with an office job in a suburban office park would find living in one of these attractive, compared to a traditional suburban apartment or house.

We have one of these, and I can't lie. I love it. It's a mall, but outdoor, but minus the huge parking lot. I love being able to shop, eat and even watch a movie in one area. It's also great for teens or large families cause it feels contained but not claustrophic.

There is also the safety factor. They are kind of like gated communities with retail. I live in a small city with a beautiful (architecturally) downtown. I hate to see it so dead from what it was in the 80s. In the 90s, many buildings were converted to condos in the hope that the downtown office workers would generate an upscale downtown, but investors bought the condos and rented them as section 8 housing, and you know the rest. In the mid 80s, this was one of the top 10 small cities in the country for quality of life, now, social service agencies are on every block. The office buildings are half empty and no young people live or go downtown anymore.

I live in Berlin, and in my neighborhood we have something like this every 1-2 km. This is historically grown but I think every 2-6Km² enough people live together to support a shopping street. For me, it is currently only 300m to a pedestrian avenue with all kinds of necessary and unnecessary niche stores.

Seems better than a mall. We all would love to live in a charming historic town like Georgetown, but the fact is we all can't afford that. So, I don't see anything wrong with providing more 3rd places throughout the suburbs.

I have mixed feelings about them. A small one opened on the edge of my housing area. I can walk to it in 25 minutes, but I have to cross a parking lot and walk behind it to get to it. It was obviously built with the idea that everyone would drive to it. I also don’t like that most of the stores are chains that relocated there from the other side of town and not much has replaced their former locations.

I kinda wish you all had covered somewhere like Downtown Silver Spring or Bethesda Row. As opposed to a place like Reston, which is still relatively new, they are suburban shopping districts that were founded in the early 20th century but have been revamped in the last 15-20 years. I feel like they’re good examples of how these areas can be modernized and cater to a suburban demographic while capitalizing on the Main Street character they already have. Although that model wouldn’t work for somewhere like Reston which, let’s me honest is basically the middle of nowhere - there are lots of smaller towns or dying suburbs that could use this hybrid-style revival

We have a number of these Town Centers in Montgomery County MD and they're rather nice. In many ways, they're more pleasant than enclosed Malls, because they're a mix of small businesses, residential and open spaces. Most suburbs lack a downtown place where residents can mingle and the Town Centers fill that gap. The Lake Forest Mall in Gaithersburg is being redeveloped into a Town Center concept and I look forward to seeing when it's completed. The Mall used to be fabulous, but it's time has come and gone, sadly.

It would be great if these things actually tied into walkable fabrics of a wider area or could actually connect people to other walkable areas via non car modes

I love that you pick 2 of probably the most expensive "classic" downtowns as a comparison. Georgetown has homes in the millions. Personally I think these are a nicer use of suburban space than what it used to be.

I actually live right next to Reston Town Center. Been here since 2015 and it has changed in terms of the types of stores you find. Long time businesses in the area are getting boxed out for low-cost/high-profit places like steakhouses and boutique stores. On average you could get a meal between $10-20 before and now it gravitates towards the $50 mark for meals with the businesses coming in. Walkability is great but it doesn't feel accessible like a suburb is supposed to be and instead caters to the office workers making $80k+/year.

0:09 I know exactly where this is (One Loudoun in Ashburn, VA). I've been there several times to watch movies, but I know this is old: there is now no parking on the left side as they filled in that part with more shops and built two new parking garages. [Edit]: The issue with new/faux town centres is that they still lack good public transport to, from, and within the spaces, so they're isolated from each other in a way that true, organic, urban spaces aren't. That is changing (slightly) with some: Reston Town Center is now connected to DC's Metro as of Tuesday (15 Nov 2022), and Fairfax County has bus connections within the Reston area. But it's still a place you drive to, shop/dine, and then drive from.

Mosaic is definitely pretty popular. Although I love Alexandria, Mosaic definitely has its appeal for those in suburbs farther out. And Reston now has Metro access with the Silver Line, so it’s got its perks too

I'm surprised with how many B-roll shots were of people doing Yoga. Is that a defining feature for these fake downtown areas? A common occurrence? It's like how they always have old people doing tai-chi in videos of parks.

The problem is, that originally these walkable neighbourhoods existed in cities where you could get there easily through public transport or walking. These new places are basically just made for cars, you cant get there easily by walking. Because of zoning laws, there aren't many mixed use neighbourhoods in north America, since everything is zoned.

They're really just tax incentivized modern malls often owned by the previous indoor mall developers, like Simon, with some expensive apartments thrown in with almost no home ownership options. Many are still largely chain stores and restaurants like the old malls with plenty of private security, but with food trucks and occasional live music to make it not as sterile. It's cheaper for the developer to build and maintain than an indoor mall and they make a killing off the apartments that they can rent for 30-50% more than those outside the centers. Austin's Domain also seems intentionally cut off from the adjacent neighborhoods and lack of connections to the hike and bike trail.

Looks very european, which is good. The U.S doesn’t feel very walkable.

definitely an improvement from a mall with acres of parking lot space! organic neighborhoods don’t happen overnight and these new neighborhoods do feel soulless. changes in zoning laws is the best way to evolve single family suburbs into a cute neighborhood with mom & pop shops with added public transportation.

There is one of these areas near me. Well, many, but the one I go to most is very integrated- the bus exchange is less then 5 minutes away so I can bus there from my 40 minute away home. They have a town square kind of thing on a corner with a couple of coffee shops and snack places, a barber shop, furniture store, lawyer, right there and the usual rentals above the businesses, but most of all an assisted living building with all ages. Within a 5 minute walk is many restaurants, a couple thrift stores and lots of other shops. You can also walk to the mall. I think having the bus exchange right there helps. It's a very organic feel, rather than 'planned'. Being able to bus in from all the outlying areas is so important.

From the DMV, I've actually been to most of the B-roll footage of these places in the video. I personally dislike them because they are still limiting like malls were. Once you leave the little area, its just private suburban communities, or parking lots surrounding all sides. Most towns that do this, however, DO have (or had) a veritable historic district that they either ignore (like Avalon in Alpharetta, GA), or pave over (like Rockville, MD). Is it really so hard to build new buildings in the style of older brick row-homes with first-floor retail/dining? Doing so in an existing historical street/district would universally be a better choice than building plastic/glass buildings in a completely new area to give people what they claim to want but have historically rejected anyway.

We clearly love these more than traditional malls. Avalon in Alpharetta GA is blocks away from what was one of the premier malls in the Atlanta suburbs, Northpoint Mall. Aso soon as Avalon was ANNOUNCED, Northpoint started its decline. 5 years on, Northpoint’s new owners are now redesigning it to be, guess what- a “town square lifestyle center”.

When I lived in WA state, I lived in a real downtown and it was very nice. Due to the pandemic, I had to move back to my family in AL, and since I moved back, I have lived in a couple of mixed use developments. It really doesn't feel much different than living in a house. The problem with mixed use developments is that they are never dense enough, and you still always have areas without sidewalks that need them, car-focused infrastructure, huge swaths of parking, etc. I actually walk to something maybe about once per month if I am lucky. My current mixed use development is surrounding a stadium, and yet, there is no way to walk to the stadium because there is no sidewalks leading to the parking around it. I have to drive the half a minute to get to the stadium every time, and that's just ridiculous.

Well you have to start somewhere. I mean, would people rather just have it stay as a closed off mall? People can complain all they want, but the town centers you want took sometimes centuries to evolve into their state today, and you either have to chose good enough to start off of fast, or be dead when you get one block of "authentic" organically. And it isnt like authentic town centers are these hipster/yuppie wonderlands of boutique shops, and fancy breweries. Most "main streets" in small downs are just boring and basic stuff, so at least there is money behind these new places to give them a better start.

I honestly really like these spaces, but they're definitely improved by having more independent businesses vs. big chains. Also having regular farmers markets, arts fairs, activities, all helps. If you're in the suburbs, it's a great option.

I don't necessarily think they're fake... they're actually very similar to what the original concept for shopping malls was supposed to be. It's like a starter kit. They aren't authentic yet, but in a few decades they will be every bit as authentic as the oldest communities. They are sustainable and repeatable... and easily implemented. It's a wonderful step in the right direction.

Do you still need a car to go there? Then it is a failure lol.

Other than all the great points people have made, one of the things that really separates these things from a traditional Main Street is that these are essentially built up overnight. A traditional Main Street is something that builds up over time, piecemeal, by different groups that have different goals for their specific land.

I agree it's the new mall but certainly an improvement on malls! I live near The Grove and The Americana in California and while there are tons of stores, there are also events, kids just playing in the grass, Yoga, and Live music! Even in LA, which most would call a "City", I personally call it a Suburban City. Places like this bring charm and community to the neighborhood!

I think it’s a great first step for changes America really needs to make as far as re-establishing a sense of place. Anything that gets Americans out of our cars and on foot/bikes/public transit is good in my eyes.

It's important to note that these town centers are actually located in the suburbs so they can be much more accessible to people in the nearby area even those who live outside the walkshed. It can be more desirable than spending the time to go into the city even in areas with decent transit connection to the city. I think rather than blow these suburban town centers off as "fake" people who want more walkable and transit oriented communities should be encouraging their development (especially adding some more affordable housing options) and cross connection.

I love it. I used to walk around downtown Green Valley in Henderson with my husband it reminded me of Santana Row here in the Bay Area we don’t buy anything we just like to get some exercise and browse shops and look at the decorations:) it does feel like a more traditional downtown city center.

You can look at Fairfax Corner, also in Virginia. It’s booming and doing better than Fair Oaks Mall located right on the other side of I-66

These serve a purpose, but they do not provide an authentic neighborhood center/ town center, for the reasons others have so well pointed out in the video and in previous comments: -Owned by a single company who curates tennants (mostly chain stores). -Often disconnected from surroundings (few sidewalk or bike connections to surrounding city). -Privately owned sidewalks and gathering places, with private rules. Of course some of these are also part of the appeal, with the trendy assortment of shops, cleanliness, and lack of panhandling. It's just not real.

from what i've read from the comments, and what i have personally seen, the issue is parking. the idea on paper is great, creating walkable centers for people to go around and socialize. however, if the area is an oasis inside a desert, there really is no difference from a shopping mall other than housing (i understand parking is necessary for many of these areas, but there should also always be a way for people to walk/bike/take transit to these locations, and not have to walk through a parking lot to do so). the example i think of is gillette stadium in foxborough massachusetts. they've added more amenities with the patriot place area, but i wouldn't call it a downtown or anything. its fundamentally disconnected from the communities around it due to the massive surface parking lot and mandatory highway connection. i believe these are a step up from malls, but to truly fix their issues, we need connect these to surrounding communities, and not make them commuter destinations. some of he examples shown here are much better than gillette, i only use it because it's the closest example from where i grew up. maybe with time, they can actually be connected to other neighborhoods and become, well, actual centers!

growing up in maryland where there wasnt a huge ton of these (outside of bethesda, rockville etc which have these now, think pike and rose) and then seeing friends in NOVA who essentially only had these types of places to congregate always made me feel beyond the class culture/not rich enough to enjoy the planted leisure culture that these places try to implement - but that experience also comes from spending youth in old school downtown places and comparing them to the latter. It's definitely a "real" vs "I see what y'all are trying to do here" energy, but for people in NOVA where there's a hyper suburban sprawl, and youth and young adults live a more segregated life and might not even be that aware of it, I saw how normalized and central it was to their life in ways I just couldn't understand. I still think they're tactless af but I will say that i've done way more christmas and holiday shopping at these types of places than I would in a traditional downtown that might have stores going out of business or places I don't even really shop at anymore. We live in a transitioning culture

i like these new malls better then the old ones. density is the key to longer term city development. I wish these new malls were connected with mass transit.

You guys should look into Downtown Frederick as it is a quintessential and beautiful town. We moved to the downtown at the beginning of the year and we love it! The walkability, the community, the amount of events happening around town, is just exactly what we wanted. After traveling through Europe that is something we wanted so badly

I think its a good step forward, more American town aiming towards walkable little centres, its not much but a step in the right direction. They other thing that should be promoted is individual shops, i was just in San Fransisco and the number of independent and family owned shocked me, the situation is so much better than in the UK, where every town centre has the same few shops!

It's funny in the larger salt lake City area there's an example of this idea that while trying to go for this look ultimately fails and is just another mall. It's called city creek. It's stores are mostly high end and over priced and the vibe while cool doesn't strike as a town center. Now meanwhile a few miles north in bountiful there's a better example of this but it's weird. Slowly over time the original main street had been getting turned into this. In fact i think the houses on top of the shops are actually real now and there's a cute little park next to the town's exact center. Bountiful is really weird though if you are down in the main street area if it wasn't for the mountains you'd swear you were back east in a cozy little town

Yeah, oooooor these are just malls built outdoors so you don't have to pay to heat and cool all that indoor space. This drops the cost for stores to rent space. It also means customers have more entry points, so they don't have to walk forever just to get to the one shop they actually want, which lowers the barrier to buy.

"We need more walkable places! We need more walkable places!" Some walkable town centers are built... "No, those aren't how we want them!" *sigh*

It depends whether these are places people will live, or if they will need to be driven to. We desperately need denser homes and walkable communities, and these have the potential to do that.

This post speaks to my day to day. Dirty little secret: often these "town centers" are constructed as a part of a community, town, or city plan. Speaking on Northern Virginia, the building of data centers drives almost all of this development. Conversely, I live in an old town on the main street. Location and history create town centers, not projects unintended to do so.

The one in my town is surrounded by ugly parking lots. There is living nearby, but most of the people drive in

Def better than typical suburb but it's still has the fundamental problem. The design isn't flexible and organic thus it can't change with the times. That's what makes cities resilient and thus able to stand the test of time and become money making machines.

In Lakewood, Belmar is full of parking lots and caters to drivers over all else. It has big box stores, massive parking lots and garages and isn't accessible via the newly built light rail a mile north because there is a highway blocking access and you have to walk down another highway with crumbling sidewalks and speeding cars to get to it. Belmar is another place for cars, not for people.

I want to clarify right away that this is better than a sprawling single family subdivision. That being said, it is frustrating that people want to continue building these imitation cities that are totally disconnected from other developments in the metro (most lack rail transit as well) when there is plenty of room to build or densify our existing cities. As long as residents of these lifestyle centers aren’t lying to themselves thinking they are helping stop urban sprawl and car dependency they’re fine, let’s just not pretend it’s the same as helping an already existing mixed use and dense area be revitalized.

to be fair for all the bad a mall is it still is the most connected place in the suburb and provides community space for the young. If you can keep these good traits and get rid of some of the bad things like massive parking lots then it doesn't matter if it's been planned a year ago or grew naturally over the last 100

Are they as good as historical town centres? No, of course not. But are they a step in the right direction for suburban communities? Absolutely. The historical town centres were new once, and these centres will probably age better than strip malls....

I’m all for spaces that encourage social interaction. These town centers will never compare to a “real” downtown area in my opinion, but it’s great to see public spaces and parks being constructed

I grew up in northern VA. The old movie theater in Merrifield that was torn down to build the Mosaic District was my go-to local theater, and I spent many, many teenage nights there or at the nearby Springfield Mall. Old Town Alexandria is one of my favorite places, and I now live in Jersey City, an almost-literal stone's throw from Manhattan. So, I feel like I'm well placed to share an opinion on this. These areas like Mosaic and Reston Town Center are by and large not replacing actual urban city centers. Instead, they're bringing a bit more of the urban city center 'vibe' to suburbia, where it's sorely lacking. No one is going to tear down Old Town and replace it with Mosaic 2.0. But if they can replace some of the suburban subdivisions interspersed with strip malls and the occasional full mall with these types of mixed use, walkable communities, I'm all for it. Are they a bit too corporate, sleek, and soulless for my liking? Yes, sure, but as the expert you interviewed says, that will come with time. And are they still a massive improvement over traditional malls and suburban sprawl? HECK yes. In fact, I'm headed home for Thanksgiving next week, and now I'm going to take my born-and-bred Manhattanite partner to Mosaic to give them a first hand sense of this middle ground, since they're so eager to move to the 'burbs. ;⁠-⁠)

"Let's build shitty non-walkable suburbs where you can't live without having like 3 cars and then add some fake malls to simulate proper zoning with gigantic parking lots next to it to even be able to reach it"

Honestly, it's good to know people want to be outside and around others. This isn't perfect, but it does seem like an improvement. I'm just glad I live in a truly walkable city.

I like this idea. I think they should make them like 10x bigger though and have lots of green spaces and parks, lakes or water features, and trams and ferries and stuff to take you about town, but the town should also be very walkable. Maybe only walkable. I feel like there used to be much more community and connection back in the 90’s but after 9/11 happened that changed. Ideally these towns could allow community, connection, and American values to take root again, and also I think these would be great for older people as well since they’d be able to walk about and interact with more people. Perhaps a cure for the loneliness that is pervasive in our society now.

It's definitely a step in the right direction. It's a movement that at least is acknowledging the problems with American suburbs and seeks to rectify the issue. Mixed use, walkable spaces are what we need. A bit of time, trial and error, and connect to and from via public transit could create a pretty good model for nice communities.

You know I was just thinking: what could make shopping malls better? I know, stop heating them and add rain!

Mixed zoning, too. Where they have 'luxury' rentals in close proximity or directly above the stores. It attracts a certain demographic while also gobbling up any potential land for single-family homes. Someone else said that the land is also private property, so is it really the third place we're looking for?

The old town square was a social event--followed by entertainment and then retail stores. The town square was not a 24/7 social event--more like a day or a weekend place. The enclosed mall failed for several reasons starting with scale. If you need to provide transportation from one end of the mall to the other, it's too big--the mall isn't human-scale. The reason for enclosed malls was simple--all year round controlled weather. The reason for the mall growing and growing (and spawning clone malls close by) was that the business model required massive numbers of customers spending lots of money. The mortgages imposed high rents on the retailers, who in turn had to charge high prices. Then there was the regimentation factor--some malls are more strictly monitored than are American public high schools. Look up the code of conduct for the malls closest to you and determine how many mall rules you've broken in the past 90 days. One thing in particular is a common rule that no more than three teens can be together in a group, or the similar rule that shoppers under a certain age must be accompanied by an adult (age 14 in most places, but I haven't read all of the mall rules). There are good reasons for that--children don't have the $500 or more to spend during their four-hour visit and bored children cause mischief, to name just two. Children go places to socialize, to vent off steam, to have a good time--all of that disrupts the orderly process of fleecing paying customers of every dime. There's no spontaneity in modern malls and pressure to buy, buy, buy (or rather, spend, spend, spend). Malls put the cart before the horse by putting retail and entertainment above the original purpose of socializing. There's not a whole lot of money in sponsoring social spaces. Disneyland is a model mall. I like Disneyland even though it's a fake downtown. First, the customers are separated from their cars by a distance. Then the customers are carefully screened--right now, that means having both a ticket and a reservation purchased in advance. I still like Disneyland, but I would hate to live there full-time. I think that the fake downtown centers will fail. They will probably create a bubble economy similar to the enclosed shopping malls and that may take several decades to burst, but developers are looking to turn a quick profit. Fake downtown centers will quickly run into the same issues of gangs, drugs, theft, over-policing, excessive mortgage interest rates, obscenely high rents, market saturation, and emphasis on gouging the customers. Add in two problems that the malls were designed to solve--exposure to foul weather and re-enacting the Bataan Death March. If the downtown center is too small, it will be overcrowded and unprofitable. If too big, the advantages of scale economy will be overshadowed by becoming a big city in its own right (with more than 20,000 customers a day required for profitability) and when the downtown center is more than a quarter mile in any one dimension then "retail shopping" and dragging all of those expensive purchases back to the remote parking lot will sap the fun out of shopping. The ideal "single block" of a city center is too small for economy of scale industrial-strength retail shopping--it's ideal for the pedestrian but doesn't generate sufficient revenue for the investors. I think that the fake downtown centers will fail as previous attempts to renovate the downtown have failed. The money people don't understand the service the customers seek.

Honestly walkability is super important and as long as it's not just shallow bs and can accommodate for organic growth but I doubt that, honestly they may lead to actually improving walkable cities which is certainly important

Absolutely support these. It's really the same as the old, for all intents and purposes. Similar businesses and walkability and better access by mixing in residential on the upper floors. You must realize that the old, "real" downtowns were always changing as well, and marginal businesses were always cycling out. In the modern ones, there are more restaurants and services, and fewer retail shops. Hard to compete with internet retail.

Historical Footnote: Both Georgetown (D.C.) and Alexandria (Va.) were largely built by enslaved Africans & African Americans but are both very exclusive white-dominated enclaves today, held in high regard by the affluent in no small part because of their well-preserved/restored historical architecture.

These are all over Florida

In St.Charles, Missouri they have both an old town (extremely walkable) and new town center... BOTH are extremely successful. Ofcourse the old town is hella much better but the new town offers things the old town couldn't and vice versa. Having and old and new composite might be another alternative.

Maybe they are modernish/fakish but better then the SUPER MALL of what many are now dead or dying. Or ready to shoot a modern zombie movie. It gives a little bit of township style to the area. Even if expensive.

The things they have over malls are they actually house people within walking distance whereas most malls are only shops and surrounded by a sea of parking. With some proper transit and less big chains, they could make fine additions to the city.

How does a community sustain this in the Northern States? For example, in the Midwest? The one thing about the indoor mall was that it was WARM AND BRIGHT! However, I do acknowledge that our malls here have also been in decline. Personally, I do not want to go out, in the snow, the wind, the ice, in my bulky clothes to go and "community" with people. Especially when my son was younger and I wanted to take him out. We both had to bundle up, get the stroller, the food, his diaper bag, winter stuff, and drive into the indoor mall if we wanted to go and get around other people. We did it, but it was inside and relatively safe and I usually bought lunch there. I am from SW Michigan where the snow and yuck is a plenty and when my son was younger we lived in the suburbs of Chicago where snow was still an issue. Did not always want to go out in the grossness of the winter as much. That is why people hibernate at home. It's not so easy to drive even for a few miles, let alone to a fake center. Anything I saw in this video was where it was warm year-round. I need to be around people in the winter. Thank goodness for Zoom and computers, but it isn't the same. That is the question I have for city planners/suburb planners. Plus now, who can go out and spend a bunch of money right now eating out all of the time, drinking coffee, going to yoga classes, and stuff like that? People around here cannot afford that. 😒

Here in SWFL we got some outdoor malls but developers are obsessed with calling them "town centers" funny that you have to drive there (because most of them are surrounded by awful stroads and miles away from any for of housing) but then you can pretend to be in a walkable city for a couple hours

These “fake town centers” are an improvement over strip malls and suburban sprawl but not quiet as good as older authentic walkable downtowns.

They should also do this with some indoor malls add a large amount of residence to it and a outdoor space similar to this... Especially for extremely hot or cold locations where indoor is desired at times.

I’ve been practicing landscape architecture for over 25 years and been involved in these types of developments. Mr. Kitchens was actually my design principal…for a while. The new “town village” has a proven track record and can create community spaces in a sprawling suburban area. It’s not perfect but it is a very effective solution to a complex issue.

My parents used to live in Avalon (the one that was shown at 17 and 38 seconds). It was so fake/creepy/uncanny valley. They loved it though.

I really think the social issues in Suburbia are greatly overstated, I live in a walkable town near pittsburgh and I don't interact with any of the locals, my friends are scattered across the metro area. Walkability is important for physical health and for economic reasons, but for social reasons... not really. People in isolated rural areas like the Amish manage to have alot of social connections and people in many large cities have horrible social ills. In reality it is what you make of it, the environment doesn't really matter much for your sociability, it is more of an internal thing

Rutgers tried to do this with Livingston Campus years ago where they would build a town center for the campus and the town of Piscataway with faux row homes for the fraternities to move from College Ave while adding businesses and restaurants above on campus housing and market rate housing. That plan never came into fruition but remnants of that plan exist on Livingston Campus in the form of the on campus apartments that opened in 2013.

It's a good idea, just needs good transit options and the burbs may be saved yet

Another point: Most of the apartments in are usually luxury condo rentals. Makes sense given the high price point of private development, but it make the society stratified or in effect creating a non working class neighborhood

Outdoor Malls....... many, many years ago we had one in Yonkers NY way before indoor malls became popular. " The Cross County Center " lol....

I think the goal for these is to eventually keep expanding these centers more and more until the whole town looks like this and then once all the parking garages you have a walkable city people really want in the first place

Basically this is what most of the cities in the rest of the world have been for centuries and only now you figured out that your system doesn't work but this looks fake AF but better than what you have been doing so far 🤷‍♂️

These are also common here in Australia. I much prefer the American model of mimicking historical town centres. There is one particular mixed use centre that been developing over the last 10 years in Western Melbourne, and each year I am getting disappointed with how bland its turning out to be.

I'm for them, but I think they could use a lot more aesthetic architecture. (Like status, topiary, and fountains)