I think this is a very US perspective. In the town where I grew up in Germany they created a pedestrian zone downtown when I was a teenager. There was a lot of protests from businesses saying that people would drive to malls in the outskirts because they can't drive to the shops anymore. The exact opposite happened, if you look at the city centre it's busy every day and absolutely jam packed on nice days (except for covid restrictions). It's also an absolute tourist magnet.
The funny thing is, the city government is talking about expanding the zones and make the whole town centre pedestrian only and the businesses are protesting with the same arguments as 20 years ago.
To be fair, there's probably an efficient frontier problem in pedestrianizing neighborhoods. If you closed off the entirety of Manhattan to cars, it would probably destroy Manhattan, but if you closed off specific areas such that people could still move themselves and goods around the city, it would be much improved.
The funny thing is, the city government is talking about expanding the zones and make the whole town centre pedestrian only and the businesses are protesting with the same arguments as 20 years ago.