Wow, I have been in Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota many times throughout my early life but never knew of Victor Gruen. It does feel comfortable in a way, and I don't even like malls. Southdale is still a very high-end mall.
Gruen wanted Southdale to be the nucleus around which to build a European style Aldstadt (town center). The parking around Southdale was where he was intending to design apartment houses.
That's why Southdale has a feel to it that subsequent malls don't.
"Altstadt" means "Old Town", which in many Germanophone cities also coincides with the "Zentrum" or city centre. But it specifically implies the presence of medieval or baroque-era buildings, not the kind of thing you just throw together on the periphery of a suburban mall in Minnesota...
I don't frequent malls that often and it's due to the fact that I'm generally on foot, the sea of parking lots usually destroy any incentive I have to go to a mall and any time I've seen a mall embedded in residential zoning I'm quite fond of it.
I still prefer having spliced zoning though, either NYC style with residences over commercial or by intermingling them laterally (i.e. shop-front, shop-front, apartment, shop-front, apartment) which would make a pretty awesome mall actually.
