Like Mountains Beyond Mountains

I read about how builders are looking at North America's many dead or dying malls as a source of residential development. It makes sense; there's more of an appetite for denser cities, so developers and planners are pushing the idea of filling in underused land. And even relatively successful malls have leftover space from closed stores and the acres of parking they only need the week before Christmas. Here in Canada, a lot of malls will be looking to fill big gaps left by Target and Sears.

As a long time fan of malls, I love this idea. The only complaint I have is that they're talking about either knocking down the malls, or adding buildings on those sprawling parking lots. If it's the latter, it could help to save a dying mall by giving it a captive audience. And since malls are usually in places that have good transit, they make good places for apartment dwellers that may not want cars. That further adds to the idea that the stores will benefit.

But I think it would be great to actually keep it nice and mall-like. Each store becomes an apartment or condo. Larger stores like H&M could be the equivalent of the penthouse. And the counters in the food court could be bachelors once you take out all the kitchen equipment. You could even put a sign over the entrance to each living space with the occupant's name. Okay, that may be pushing it too far.

Alright, I wrote that thinking if would never happen, but it turns out it happened at the oldest mall in America. It looks pretty nice, though - this being a historic mall - it isn't nearly as campy as I'd hoped. Apparently, these developments are shying away from using the word "mall" in describing them, because they don't want to scare off young people who see them as part of a bygone age. But I figure that you could play up the mall angle to go after folks in my age group who will have fond memories of them. And I'm sure you'd get some young people attracted to the irony of it all.

In the past, I've discussed how today's housing doesn't really provide us with social engagement, but living in a mall could give people that semi-communal living that a lot of people would like. It's hard to get to know people around you when you just see them in the elevator occasionally. But you'd have far more chance for interaction when you're also shopping around them. And malls would also be more pleasant if the people weren't just rushing around in their own worlds, avoiding everyone but their immediate companions.

And imagine the apartments were built above the stores, overlooking the mall, like the offices in the Eaton Centre. That would give the mall a more impressive atmosphere, and the apartments would get a better view than just a panorama of suburbia. Just pray you don't get an apartment over a trendy clothing store with the music cranked to eleven.

But now I find that they did essentially this at the University of Alberta, where they put a residence over top of the student centre. That sounds like a great idea. Residences are often pushed off to the side of the campus, it would be more convenient to have an easy connection with everything. And it would give the students more opportunity to casually socialize.