I liked whistler village when I visited. All the cars are parked on the outside. Inside there is only walking, restaurants and shopping. Creates a really nice atmosphere.
Outdoor malls seem to be the closet thing to that. And are pretty great spaces to be in. Maybe will be more prevalent because of covid now. But they even work in cold places, there is one in Michigan that I know off.
I used to live across from a 3 story apartment building, maybe 20 apartments. Pretty run down place, with drug dealers, and just low income people.
Then the apartment building owner decided to do some landscaping. Planted a few trees, and put out some adirondack chairs on the front lawn. Which attracted a guy wanting to play his guitar outside. Which then attracted an audience. Which then turned into a nightly gathering of people on the front lawn playing music from the apartment building.
People with drug and alcohol abuse problems still live in that building. But now that place has real sense of community. And actual happy moments are shared outside nightly. Where as before everyone would rush through the front door to their apartment, now they stop and say hi to each other.
Japan has "shopping arcades" which I really like. It is like a wide pedestrian-only alley with the retail density of a mall, but outdoors and the path is covered. Then side streets are local access only and often have small restaurants or izakayas
Outdoor malls seem to be the closet thing to that. And are pretty great spaces to be in. Maybe will be more prevalent because of covid now. But they even work in cold places, there is one in Michigan that I know off.
I used to live across from a 3 story apartment building, maybe 20 apartments. Pretty run down place, with drug dealers, and just low income people.
Then the apartment building owner decided to do some landscaping. Planted a few trees, and put out some adirondack chairs on the front lawn. Which attracted a guy wanting to play his guitar outside. Which then attracted an audience. Which then turned into a nightly gathering of people on the front lawn playing music from the apartment building. People with drug and alcohol abuse problems still live in that building. But now that place has real sense of community. And actual happy moments are shared outside nightly. Where as before everyone would rush through the front door to their apartment, now they stop and say hi to each other.