Was discussing the same with dad when walking through a nearly abandoned mall in MD a while ago. Think a sort of gated community - anchor stores can become things like WholeFoods. Reclaiming a ribbon of parking around the mall allows for creating a green zone around the mall and possibly even ‘backyard’ gardens. And as noted by others, it is far more trivial to add the necessary infrastructure to support housing. Natural light is another issue which can be addressed with minor alteration to the external facing walls of stores. Basically you can easily stamp out big studios, merge stores for n-bedrooms, and depending on the structure of the mall possibly even punch through floors for duplexes, etc. These will be luxury units. And the ‘food court’ etc. can form the core of the ‘village’.
