A fieldtrip to "'70s era walkable urbanism": The Connecticut Post Mall...

We took a field trip to the Connecticut Post Mall today--I've been told it's the largest retail facility in the state, I've also been told it is definitely not. Either way, it's big. About 2 miles from our house. I've never been there except on the bicycle to take pictures of the parking on Black Friday. It was a fascinating trip...







I found the mall had most things traditional towns did before zoning/auto-orientation began to destroy sustainability: Looking down on the town square, with "outdoor" cafés in the background...

 





A little bitty corner store off the town square:

 










A really small diner (this one can have an "outdoor" bar because of the roof!):

 

Small "outdoor" seating... reminds me of a friend's comment (responding to how Carbondale had outlawed sidewalk café seating for a while), "yeah, cause the thing that makes Paris such a dump is all the freakin' sidewalk cafés!":

Note the narrow "streets" that make for a cozy, active atmosphere. This is the beauty of the goal of a mall as a walkable village, sheltered from the elements.
 
This mall still has enough polish and investment to attract active stores, so you get lots of "eyes on the street" which makes it feel very fun and safe. This is the cycle that makes malls non-viable though in the way downtowns and traditional market areas remain viable: everything is the same age, so you can't have cheap start-ups in the vicinity of more expensive, new things. The mall is owned by one conglomerate, and the whole thing is cared for in the same way--so if it's a new mall, or one that's just had a bunch of investment, it attracts expensive, attractive stores; if it's an older mall it's universally in decline and starts attracting cheaper stores that don't have the same attraction value to customers. You can't have diversity of economy with such expensive infrastructure (i.e. putting a roof and climate control over the whole village).

The other detractor to malls: they are surrounded by a sea of asphalt. In good weather it's baking hot, in rainy weather its dismal, and the whole experience (because it's all retail with no residential mixed in) is only accessible by braving this (and equipping yourself to do so at an average of $9k a year...). You can't have diversity of use--and the whole thing has to get shut off at 9 or 10 pm to avoid excessive security costs, so you can only capitalize on the space for about half the day.