The traditional, indoor shopping mall is known for its soaring atrium and sprawling floor plan -Image by kishjar? per Flickr CC BY 4.0 Lifestyle centers: reinvented communities or dressed-up shopping malls? Jeff Hardwick , George Mason University Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose’s Santana Row covers 42 acres. Its dense, high-end retailing, residences, restaurants and offices create a city-within-a-city. The architecture – with urban row houses finished with earth tones and pastel stucco – overtly evokes Old Europe, and developers brought in antique metalwork, pottery and stone fountains to further instil a sense of history (one store even imported the façade of a nineteenth-century building from France). Meet the shopping mall’s hipper, New Urbanist cousin: the “lifestyle center.” The form is becoming more and more popular among developers and shoppers. But while lifestyle centers are promoted as a 21st century, community-orien...
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