
New York City is a mall - blegh
https://ny.curbed.com/2019/6/26/18693372/new-york-mall-hudson-yards-empire-outlets
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kenhwang
Just look at Tokyo as an example of what a city organically grows into. Every
major transport hub is filled with shopping and food. NYC is abit the same
way. I like it. People generally don't like living right next to
transportation hubs, so why not make those areas commercial space.

Everyone likes having many options for dining, so that's the main draw. Dining
naturally has waiting, so why not have shopping for waiting diners to kill
some time and even act as buffer space between dining options. Movie theaters
and museums are great before/after meal activities. Throw in some office space
so there's weekday/daytime business for restaurants and better utilization of
parking and transportation.

Now you've created a place where people want to be that's convenient to get
to. That's what a city is, isn't it? Just without the typical city drawbacks
like crime, trash, vehicles, pollution, and homelessness.

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Sukotto
>Just look at Tokyo ... Every major transport hub is filled with shopping and
food.

They are designed that way.

New transit construction is often the result of a joint venture between a rail
company and one or more shopping construction companies / real estate
companies.

They work together to identify where they can profitably build a new station,
with attached (or nearby) shopping + residences. Then work with financing
companies to pay for the land acquisition, construction, and advertising.

~~~
kenhwang
Point is, they wouldn't design them that way if it didn't work or if people
didn't like them. Retail works best when it's convenient. Classic American
malls were not.

Cities are designed too. Why don't we design them to be desirable places to
be?

~~~
devnulloverflow
Because in America these things are designed by zoning and the political
process. What you describe in Japan sounds like the Horrors of Captialism and
can't possibly be allowed in America.

(Except I suppose it does happen, since the whole point of the article is that
NYC does it).

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brenden2
FWIW I live in Manhattan and I actively avoid these places. They are mostly
packed with tourists, I doubt many locals spend time there. I've never been to
Hudson Yards intentionally (I've walked past it before) and I don't plan on
going. There's lots of good stuff in NYC if you're not a tourist, and it's
very far from being a mall.

~~~
fortran77
Many people like them. I was raised in NY and appreciate all the things NY has
to offer, even the "touristy" ones. You should go!

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carapace
This is nothing. A review of malls. A "native advertising" piece for malls. (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising)
)

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Finnucane
Manhattan has been turning into a mall for at least the last 20 years or so,
starting with Times Square and radiating outward from there. That this has
metastasized into more actual malls is not really surprising.

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kevin_thibedeau
Many of these places are dead malls from opening day because they are stuffed
with luxury shops that never seem to have any customers.

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seltzered_
Surprised the article didn't also mention the megamall "American Dream
Meadowlands" (just west of Manhattan in New Jersey) which recently opened
after over a decade involving bankruptcy, and a 2011 roof collapse:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_Meadowlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_Meadowlands)

edit: article written in June 2019, Meadowlands opened in October 2019.

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jdlyga
A good mall really is designed to be like a city. It's an interesting
comparison. I noticed the same thing when I moved to Manhattan from the
suburbs. Not just the proximity to retail stores (I live a half a block away
from a Lululemon), but the dedication to a shared public space, and being
around so many other pedestrians.

~~~
akdas
It sounds you may already know this, but for those who don't: malls were
originally designed to be small cities. The inventor of the shopping mall,
Victor Gruen, envisioned a structure with housing, medical centers, post
offices, in addition to shopping. The idea was to mimic what his birthplace of
Vienna already had: a mixed-use center not dominated by cars the way American
suburbs are.

99% Invisible has a great episode about it:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-
effect/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/)

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cylinder
Sounds like Westfield Bondi Junction. Most space used effectively. Large
supermarkets in the mall. Cafes in the open corridor space. Intentionally
confusing to get around.

Btw, do American shops have parents rooms yet?

~~~
devnulloverflow
Now you are confusing me, because in Australia "mall" means something else --
and in Bondi Junction there's a mall right outside the Westfield.

I had some visitors from from Washington DC recently. They were impressed at
how much more "happening" the local shopping centre (Hornsby Westfield) was
compared to American malls. I suspect Westfield is a bit of a world-leader in
this business.

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spodek
I would be glad to see farmers markets and public green space with living
plants and places for children to play freely displace them all.

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readhn
Would it work economically though? Are there enough farmers and demand for
products to make it commercially viable in manhattan?

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kevin_thibedeau
There are already multiple farmer's markets in the city. There are vendors
coming in from PA, NJ, CT, and upstate.

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paulhodge
If you really want to talk about cities that have turned into malls, talk
about Singapore.

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wnscooke
How so? It has malls, but it isn’t a mall by any stretch.

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chadlavi
That shit ain't New York, it's tourist traps.

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readhn
To me for some reason New Jersey is one big mall (northern jersey) and a
parking lot.

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hacknat
I have to say that I feel bad for New Yorkers. I live in the middle of the
country, but I work for a company on the lower east-side. I’m often in
Manhattan, so I think I have a feel for what it’s like there and there is such
a poverty of what a global city could be there. I’ve seen quite a bit of the
world and dense Spanish urban centers are much better than Manhattan.
Barcelona has created super blocks, which are these dense areas where
absolutely no cars are allowed. The result is nothing short of amazing. The
first time I saw it, I realized I had never seen anything like it before.
There such an abundance of life and the levity in the air is palpable. “This
is what it must have been like to live in an ancient city“ is often what I
found myself thinking. Your really need to experience it before you die. It’s
what human life should look like. New York ain’t it. Not even close.

~~~
dajohnson89
Brooklynite here, but I've lived all over the country.

We don't need your pity. There might be better examples of what an urban
center could be, and some aspects of NYC are definitely a shitshow. But in my
not-so-humble opinion -- nowhere else in the states comes close.

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Swizec
> nowhere else in the states comes close

SF comes close.

After moving to SF from [small city/town] Europe a few years ago I spent a
long time thinking about what it is that draws me to SF and why the only other
city in USA that I'd even consider is NYC.

The answer I came up with was population density combined with population
size. You want a big dense population. That creates the economies of scale
that make a city feel like a city.

For example I've got 2 corner stores, 3 bars, and 2 restaurants on the same
block as my apartment building. That just wouldn't make sense if there wasn't
enough people around here to support those businesses.

If you look at US cities by population density on Wikipedia you'll notice the
only places with more than 100,000 people and a density above 10,000 per
square mile are San Francisco and New York with some surrounding cities in the
greater megalopolis.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density#Incorporated_places_with_a_density_of_over_10,000_people_per_square_mile)

Next on the list is Boston. Then Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami. But those
have densities in the low 1X,000/mi^2 whereas SF is at 17,000/mi^2 and NYC a
whopping 27,000/mi^2.

Without density a city feels like a sprawling suburb.

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moogleii
After living in the suburbs of California for quite some time, I would have
agreed with you. SF seemed like a metropolis in comparison. But after living
in NYC for close to a decade, SF now feels like a large suburb with an
attached city center. Imo, density/infrastructure/urban-planning-wise, SF
feels most similar to Brooklyn, where cars are still very dominant. Brooklyn
alone has a density of 35,000/mi^2, where Manhattan alone is at 69,000.

Not knocking on your opinion, just adding my 2 cents. Brooklyn is large, fun,
exciting, etc, all the things I’d describe SF as, but I don’t know if I’d call
it a metropolis on its own (at least not based on my personal opinion),
whereas I would easily describe NYC as so (either defined in its entirety or
just Manhattan, which would probably bug the natives).

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Swizec
I agree, I just haven’t had a chance to live in NYC yet :)

But it’s the only upgrade on SF that I can think of in USA based on the cities
I’ve visited.

