The Mall Goes Undercover
It now looks like a city street.
By Andrew Blum
Posted Wednesday, April 6, 2005, at 3:24 AM PT
http://slate.com/id/2116246/

Like insecure teenagers, malls keep changing their style. They are
ripping away their roofs and drywalled corridors; adding open-air
plazas, sidewalks, and street-side parking; and rechristening
themselves "lifestyle centers." This new look may remind you of
something: a vibrant urban street. Yet, while these new malls may
appear to be public space, they're not public at all—at least if you
want to do anything but shop. They represent a bait-and-switch routine
on the part of developers, one that exchanges the public realm for the
commercial one. They're also enormously successful—by the most recent
count, there are about 130 lifestyle centers scattered around the
country. In 2006, New York City will get its very first.

  On a recent Saturday, in search of the future, I visited a lifestyle
center on the edge of Phoenix called the Desert Ridge Marketplace.
Parking my rented Chevy in front of a big-box emporium called Barbeques
Galore, I walked through the arched portals that decorate the
marketplace entrance. Inside, there were restaurants and stores lining
a winding and narrow outdoor pedestrian street that opened up onto a
series of little plazas. Padded wicker chairs were strewn about in a
studied, casual way, and a huge fieldstone fireplace had benches built
into it for those cool desert nights. This was a delightful place for a
Frappuccino.

Next, I drove only a dozen miles down the road to another lifestyle
center, Kierland Commons, that has a more residential feel. It
immediately felt like a real, bustling neighborhood. The sidewalks were
shaded from the sun by flowered trellises, and the streets narrowed at
the corners to give pedestrians an implied right of way. An urban plaza
with a good café and a band shell provided a central gathering place.
The promotional material for Kierland Commons boasts of a "unique urban
village," and a "pleasing, vibrant place where community takes shape
and public life happens." Indeed, as I stand around watching, a jazz
singer draws an audience, stooping to serenade a passing bichon frisé.
The crowd coos. And, wait, the Phoenix Suns girls are here!

This is civic life in America, circa 2005, and it's spreading.

Read the rest:

http://slate.com/id/2116246/