I wish the author would hit the non-walkability a bit harder. To get from one section to another, cross a street. To get from one side to another, you have to cross several streets.
There is one area that did the same thing where I live (The Greene Town Center). I cannot simply think of why I would want to live there, and I was their target demographic! I really can't walk around inside of The Greene without having to watch traffic (I am simply amazed at how recklessly folks drive in there). If you look at both the Greene and that picture, the roads are pervasive in there.
The suburban neighborhood I live in is actually more walkable! I can walk through a park to get to the library, I have to cross a single one lane road to get to a Kroger, and I can walk within the neighborhood on the street with almost no concern for traffic (heck, it has better sidewalks then the Greene!)
If you really want to attract people to live there, make the place actually an area where you only need a car to drive to/from work (and try to bring jobs to there!). Bring Grocery Stores, Schools, a community center, local restaurants to the area. Have a park! Make it so I can walk/cycle to places surrounding the area. Shove parking/cars out of the way.
Heck, even downtowns have the same issue. The downtown in Dayton only has Second Street Market that could pass as a grocery store (don't get me wrong, that place is awesome, but it's only open Fri-Sun). I thought about living downtown, but once again, I have to drive to get anywhere anyways. I have no incentive to live downtown.
I first encountered this kind of shopping center in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Main Street at Exton struck me as incredibly strange - it's a strip mall dressed up to look like an urban downtown, right down to parallel parking spots on the street. Once you do park, it is actually fairly walkable.
A couple of years later, after having moved to Philadelphia, there was something I wanted to grab at a store in Main Street at Exton. There's a regional rail station a half mile from the shopping center, so I hopped a train. The absurd thing about this particular arrangement, which otherwise sounds like a great way to connect nearby markets, is that there is no sidewalk between the train station and the shopping center. The station sits where a major local road meets a major highway, so one way or another, you're crossing six lanes of traffic to get past the local road, and you have to cross two major highway four-lane on/off ramps as you go under the highway overpass, walking along a beaten grass path with only a curb between you and the traffic.
Exton Mall's another mile up the road, and while there's sporadic sidewalks between the two malls, I've never bothered with that walk.
Given the proximity of this shopping center to public transit, I don't think it's a big leap to suggest that the decision to exclude sidewalks was at best a classist choice, at worst a racist choice.
I live in a part of Philadelphia that's unusually pedestrian friendly, all things considered. I can walk to pick up groceries (except I get those delivered), the hardware store, coffee shops, restaurants, galleries, all manner of everyday things that, when I lived in the exurbs, I had to hop in the car and drive anywhere from 5-30 minutes to get to, and it's fantastic. We've also got more methods of public transit than almost anywhere in the world (not saying the coverage is great, mind you), and I've been here long enough that despite all the challenges that come with living in an old urban center, I hope I never have to go back to a suburban lifestyle.
It was clear from the moment I pulled up to "Main Street" that these psuedo-downtowns miss the point.
It's interesting that you chose that example, as I'm very familiar with the location. For what it's worth, that area is undergoing massive development and change. Not sure if you've been by recently, but they're adding hundreds of apartments directly in Main Street to finally complete the original plan of mixed residential and commercial. This is in addition to the hundreds of other apartments/condos being built within a 1/2 mile radius of that location.
The township (West Whiteland) is very aware of the issues with walking paths and sidewalks to nearby areas and train stations, and there are active plans to address it. You can check out their master plan here: https://www.westwhiteland.org/DocumentCenter/View/154/Lincol...
The other thing you might not have noticed is that the beautiful Chester Valley Trail (biking/walking) runs directly through the Main Street center, and connects to many corporate parks (e.g. Vanguard) and shopping locations in Malvern, KOP, etc. It will ultimately connect to the Schuylkill trail that runs to Philadelphia, as well as Valley Forge Park. https://pecpa.org/wp-content/uploads/3-Trail-Itineraries-Bro...
i'd read somewhere that these kinds of developments became popular with developers (over indoor malls) because of their success in southern california in the past couple decades: the revitalization of third street promenade in santa monica and the success of the grove in LA (as well as irvine company developments in orange county).
to be honest, the grove always gives me the fakeness willies, like it's all facade and no substance (broken only when i walk into a store and it becomes real somehow).
I've been to both of those places. The huge difference between them, the example I give, and the one from the website once you park and get to the grove, there's no car traffic in it!
The third street promenade likewise had entire blocks closed to traffic. Crossings where also very generous to the pedestrians, so you rarely had to wait to cross the street and knew that you wouldn't get hit. It was also very easy to walk to the Santa Monica beach.
yes, i was commenting more on the impetus for the rise of insular, faux "microcommunities" in general than on the walkability therein, which, as you point out, is better at 3rd street & the grove.
Racism is the wrong cause. The mall probably doesn't own the land between the mall and sidewalk, so it is someone else's problem. The city who most likely owns and controls the land doesn't report to the transit system and doesn't care about it - local voters might vote for transit but they are voting from the idea of getting "other people" (note a race thing) out of their car for either environmental or traffic reasons.
The mall developer didn't ask for them because the idea of useful transit doesn't even occur to them. Most places they build a mall can't have any useful connection to transit so they don't even think about how thing might be better with it.
> I really can't walk around inside of The Greene without having to watch traffic (I am simply amazed at how recklessly folks drive in there).
If you're talking about the one in Ohio, I'm not sure you have reasonable expectations of what walkable means. There's not going to be many places where you can walk in the street without having to watch out for cars. But if your expectation is more like I can walk to shops and restaurants then it fits the bill. The only real difference between it and a classic downtown is that it's full of chain stores/restaurants instead of locally owned places.
I am talking about that one. My expectation would be those streets shouldn't be there in the first place honestly. I should be able to walk from one side of that mall to the other without worrying about cars.
Parking lots surround it in the first place. Do you really need to have parking 10 ft away from every shop?
Another poster mentioned the grove in LA. That is actually a pretty good model for what I'd say is a good walkable outdoor mall. There's no car traffic in the Grove, and no car traffic in the farmers market.
I'd also add in, this is different from a downtown in that is was planned. It wasn't like they had constraints based on locations, public roads, etc. If we were talking like revitalizing an actual downtown (like Oregon District), I'd be a bit less critical. But when I see planned "downtowns" that make it so the pedestrian is still subservient to the car, and it doesn't have all the amenities I actually need to live there (which I'll give that I probably have to drive somewhere to work, but still, even something as basic as a grocery store), Sorry, not really interested.
There is one area that did the same thing where I live (The Greene Town Center). I cannot simply think of why I would want to live there, and I was their target demographic! I really can't walk around inside of The Greene without having to watch traffic (I am simply amazed at how recklessly folks drive in there). If you look at both the Greene and that picture, the roads are pervasive in there.
The suburban neighborhood I live in is actually more walkable! I can walk through a park to get to the library, I have to cross a single one lane road to get to a Kroger, and I can walk within the neighborhood on the street with almost no concern for traffic (heck, it has better sidewalks then the Greene!)
If you really want to attract people to live there, make the place actually an area where you only need a car to drive to/from work (and try to bring jobs to there!). Bring Grocery Stores, Schools, a community center, local restaurants to the area. Have a park! Make it so I can walk/cycle to places surrounding the area. Shove parking/cars out of the way.
Heck, even downtowns have the same issue. The downtown in Dayton only has Second Street Market that could pass as a grocery store (don't get me wrong, that place is awesome, but it's only open Fri-Sun). I thought about living downtown, but once again, I have to drive to get anywhere anyways. I have no incentive to live downtown.