New York City is a mall | Hacker News Reader

New York City is a mall

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33 pointsblegh51 comments

Just look at Tokyo as an example of what a city organically grows into. Every major transport hub is filled with shopping and food. NYC is abit the same way. I like it. People generally don't like living right next to transportation hubs, so why not make those areas commercial space.

Everyone likes having many options for dining, so that's the main draw. Dining naturally has waiting, so why not have shopping for waiting diners to kill some time and even act as buffer space between dining options. Movie theaters and museums are great before/after meal activities. Throw in some office space so there's weekday/daytime business for restaurants and better utilization of parking and transportation.

Now you've created a place where people want to be that's convenient to get to. That's what a city is, isn't it? Just without the typical city drawbacks like crime, trash, vehicles, pollution, and homelessness.

>Just look at Tokyo ... Every major transport hub is filled with shopping and food.

They are designed that way.

New transit construction is often the result of a joint venture between a rail company and one or more shopping construction companies / real estate companies.

They work together to identify where they can profitably build a new station, with attached (or nearby) shopping + residences. Then work with financing companies to pay for the land acquisition, construction, and advertising.

Point is, they wouldn't design them that way if it didn't work or if people didn't like them. Retail works best when it's convenient. Classic American malls were not.

Cities are designed too. Why don't we design them to be desirable places to be?

Because in America these things are designed by zoning and the political process. What you describe in Japan sounds like the Horrors of Captialism and can't possibly be allowed in America.

(Except I suppose it does happen, since the whole point of the article is that NYC does it).

FWIW I live in Manhattan and I actively avoid these places. They are mostly packed with tourists, I doubt many locals spend time there. I've never been to Hudson Yards intentionally (I've walked past it before) and I don't plan on going. There's lots of good stuff in NYC if you're not a tourist, and it's very far from being a mall.

Many people like them. I was raised in NY and appreciate all the things NY has to offer, even the "touristy" ones. You should go!

I checked out Hudson Yards as a tourist, and I would also agree it’s not a great example of a mall. Both the architecture and the shop selection seemed to be tuned more for Instagram-worthiness than for being a place you’d want to spend time, eat, or actually shop. The same goes for the mall in the Oculus.

I checked out the Vessel which was pretty neat, although I didn’t have a ticket to climb it.

I live fairly close to the Oculus and don’t mind it. Usually once you get past the crowds taking pictures near the entrances it’s not super crowded to walk around in.

Many of the stores are a bit more high end than I generally need but it’s nice to have an Apple store and I’ve picked up some decent clothes for a wedding in some of the clothing shops.

Plus I quite enjoy being down near World Trade these days. The memorial space is really quite pretty and tastefully done in my opinion. They did a great job putting in so many trees, and there’s an area that’s painted with a lot of very colorful art panels.

Plus there’s a really nice farmers market down there many days.

All in all I understand people who sort of avoid the more touristy areas but for me I don’t really seem to mind them so much.

I think that’s why I like it here so much actually, not all the touristy spots specifically, but the wonderful diversity of flavors to NYC.

There’s just so many ways to enjoy the wealth of culture we have here.

This is nothing. A review of malls. A "native advertising" piece for malls. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising )

Manhattan has been turning into a mall for at least the last 20 years or so, starting with Times Square and radiating outward from there. That this has metastasized into more actual malls is not really surprising.

Many of these places are dead malls from opening day because they are stuffed with luxury shops that never seem to have any customers.

Surprised the article didn't also mention the megamall "American Dream Meadowlands" (just west of Manhattan in New Jersey) which recently opened after over a decade involving bankruptcy, and a 2011 roof collapse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream_Meadowlands

edit: article written in June 2019, Meadowlands opened in October 2019.

A good mall really is designed to be like a city. It's an interesting comparison. I noticed the same thing when I moved to Manhattan from the suburbs. Not just the proximity to retail stores (I live a half a block away from a Lululemon), but the dedication to a shared public space, and being around so many other pedestrians.

It sounds you may already know this, but for those who don't: malls were originally designed to be small cities. The inventor of the shopping mall, Victor Gruen, envisioned a structure with housing, medical centers, post offices, in addition to shopping. The idea was to mimic what his birthplace of Vienna already had: a mixed-use center not dominated by cars the way American suburbs are.

99% Invisible has a great episode about it: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/

Sounds like Westfield Bondi Junction. Most space used effectively. Large supermarkets in the mall. Cafes in the open corridor space. Intentionally confusing to get around.

Btw, do American shops have parents rooms yet?

Now you are confusing me, because in Australia "mall" means something else -- and in Bondi Junction there's a mall right outside the Westfield.

I had some visitors from from Washington DC recently. They were impressed at how much more "happening" the local shopping centre (Hornsby Westfield) was compared to American malls. I suspect Westfield is a bit of a world-leader in this business.

I would be glad to see farmers markets and public green space with living plants and places for children to play freely displace them all.

Would it work economically though? Are there enough farmers and demand for products to make it commercially viable in manhattan?

There are already multiple farmer's markets in the city. There are vendors coming in from PA, NJ, CT, and upstate.

If you really want to talk about cities that have turned into malls, talk about Singapore.

How so? It has malls, but it isn’t a mall by any stretch.

That shit ain't New York, it's tourist traps.

To me for some reason New Jersey is one big mall (northern jersey) and a parking lot.

I have to say that I feel bad for New Yorkers. I live in the middle of the country, but I work for a company on the lower east-side. I’m often in Manhattan, so I think I have a feel for what it’s like there and there is such a poverty of what a global city could be there. I’ve seen quite a bit of the world and dense Spanish urban centers are much better than Manhattan. Barcelona has created super blocks, which are these dense areas where absolutely no cars are allowed. The result is nothing short of amazing. The first time I saw it, I realized I had never seen anything like it before. There such an abundance of life and the levity in the air is palpable. “This is what it must have been like to live in an ancient city“ is often what I found myself thinking. Your really need to experience it before you die. It’s what human life should look like. New York ain’t it. Not even close.

Brooklynite here, but I've lived all over the country.

We don't need your pity. There might be better examples of what an urban center could be, and some aspects of NYC are definitely a shitshow. But in my not-so-humble opinion -- nowhere else in the states comes close.

> nowhere else in the states comes close.

True, but his examples were not from the US, which is reasonable. The USA does cities very poorly. New York has been forced into some true urban functionality by being the biggest city in the US, but that doesn't mean it's a fine model.

Whataboutism isn’t a defense. OP was pointing out that, as an outsider, it’s obvious NYC is lame for the class of city it’s trying to be.

You don’t have to be a regular at a restaurant to point out its flaws.

What was the subject of his alleged whataboutism?

The rest of the US.

It's not whataboutism. USA is my country, no matter how shitty the cities are. There are reasons both personal and practical for why leaving the country and living in one of your beloved model cities is a non-starter.

> nowhere else in the states comes close

SF comes close.

After moving to SF from [small city/town] Europe a few years ago I spent a long time thinking about what it is that draws me to SF and why the only other city in USA that I'd even consider is NYC.

The answer I came up with was population density combined with population size. You want a big dense population. That creates the economies of scale that make a city feel like a city.

For example I've got 2 corner stores, 3 bars, and 2 restaurants on the same block as my apartment building. That just wouldn't make sense if there wasn't enough people around here to support those businesses.

If you look at US cities by population density on Wikipedia you'll notice the only places with more than 100,000 people and a density above 10,000 per square mile are San Francisco and New York with some surrounding cities in the greater megalopolis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Next on the list is Boston. Then Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami. But those have densities in the low 1X,000/mi^2 whereas SF is at 17,000/mi^2 and NYC a whopping 27,000/mi^2.

Without density a city feels like a sprawling suburb.

After living in the suburbs of California for quite some time, I would have agreed with you. SF seemed like a metropolis in comparison. But after living in NYC for close to a decade, SF now feels like a large suburb with an attached city center. Imo, density/infrastructure/urban-planning-wise, SF feels most similar to Brooklyn, where cars are still very dominant. Brooklyn alone has a density of 35,000/mi^2, where Manhattan alone is at 69,000.

Not knocking on your opinion, just adding my 2 cents. Brooklyn is large, fun, exciting, etc, all the things I’d describe SF as, but I don’t know if I’d call it a metropolis on its own (at least not based on my personal opinion), whereas I would easily describe NYC as so (either defined in its entirety or just Manhattan, which would probably bug the natives).

I agree, I just haven’t had a chance to live in NYC yet :)

But it’s the only upgrade on SF that I can think of in USA based on the cities I’ve visited.

You could also just like... have a car.

> SF comes close

It most certainly does not. SF is a simulacrum of a proper city, but it's sadly the "best" of what's available in the bay area.

I wasn’t comparing New York to any place in the US. It is probably the best American city, but that’s not a high bar.

Lived in NYC (Manhattan and Brooklyn) five years, experienced highs and lows, started a business, closed one, took a traditional job and contract jobs, so I saw a lot. it's extremely overrated and overhyped. Lots of good, interesting people, but also lots of pretty awful ones (usually from somewhere else). Ultimately, the quality of life is poor and even London is far more livable than New York.

Edit: the rapid downvotes show how fragile the egos of New Yorkers are, this was always something I knew... really can't handle being told New York isn't the greatest place in the world!

> pretty awful [people] (usually from somewhere else).

This is a strange assertion. What do you mean by this? Are you regurgitating the standard complaint about (white, midwest) transplants? From what I've seen over the years, most of the hyper-aggressive ding dongs are braying and bleating with thick, native NY/NJ accents.

No, I'm not. I'm more referring to the money-chaser Type As who come from around the world to hustle there, and yes I'd count NJ as somewhere else, as well as Long Island.

One of the things I love about NYC is how diverse it is both in people and industry. I don’t really know many finance types (at least assuming they are how they’re stereotyped); my social cross section seems to be tech, education, art, and law, so I guess I managed to miss that part of your experience.

Otherwise, my experience has largely been the opposite. I’ve worked with expats from Japan and Europe, and most of them love it here. Most of the Japanese folks actually chose to bypass the West coast entirely, having never been there, and came straight to NYC. One described it as “the future” in terms of diversity.

But yeah, it’s a big city, and I see shitty behavior all the time, so I’m not surprised by your experience.

You reinforce an unconstructive comment with another?

Would you recommend someone live there for a year or two? Kinda tired of the bay area

Personally I'd rather experience living somewhere in Europe for a year or two. See if you can pull that off.

Certainly no harm done living in NYC for two years especially if you come with a job lined up. It will definitely make you a bit more street smart and more adaptable, I think. As far as settling down permanently and raising a family, nope.

One good thing is that living in NYC, for the first time I didn't feel like a minority. It's so different to most of the rest of the US. There is no majority "in charge" of the place. I think that was an important experience for me.

I don't regret living there, but I wish I left sooner.

Edit: if your career is, and always will be, extremely important to you, and you have a good position with lots of potential to move up, and you are workaholic type, you will probably love it.

I lived in Oakland (and commuted into SF for work) for a year and a half so I feel like I'm pretty street smart as it is

What's the draw of Europe? Personally I don't think I'd like being a foreigner and not having any friends there. Might be cool to visit for a month or two but 2 years is kinda.... stretching it? At least in NYC its still in the states

I've lived/worked here for two years now. I moved (and stayed) for three reasons:

1) Top-tier companies to work for (second only to SF)

2) Top-tier arts/culture/park systems (second to none)

3) Wife is Korean and this is the place she's felt most safe walking alone on the street in the US (having previously lived in the Philly suburbs, Philly, and LA).

3b) Extremely multi-cultural and accepting. "Accepting" as in no one cares about anyone, which can be paradoxically nice. (second to none)

We couldn't find a city that improved on these trade-offs elsewhere in the US. Actually we've had a hard time finding places with better trade-offs anywhere else in the world (Toronto is a good candidate). But I want to work outside North America sometime.

We pay for it in the insane rents.

Subjective and frankly insane to say. Over 8 million people live in NYC (over 2x the population of the next most populous city in the USA, Los Angeles). NYC is commonly known in western culture as a world capital of culture, finance, and world politics (recall the UN). The population of NYC has grown by over 223,615 since the previous census. I agree with you that other cities around the world (a very large area!) may appeal to your personal sensibilities, but saying you 'feel bad for New Yorkers' is trolling. I Feel Bad for any backwoods country-dweller that thinks they have it better than the hundreds of thousands of people that made the choice to move to one of the (objectively) greatest cities in the world to improve their life. See how that feels? You just attempted to apply that to millions of people. Every densely populated has is faults (Barcelona particularly! Many, as in a substantial voting bloc, residents would prefer you to have never come as a tourist at all.) Pigeonholing the residents of the largest city in the USA to be worthy of your sympathy based on their choice to live there is not constructive, nor rational.

> NYC is commonly known in western culture as a world capital of culture, finance, and world politics

Commonly known in NYC maybe. That view is antiquated in the rest of the US.

> USA to be worthy of your sympathy based on their choice to live there is not constructive, nor rational.

Wow, so sensitive. The pity is not because of their choice. It’s for how the urban planning of NYC has been consistently squandered for 50+ years. You can simultaneously like a city and have pity for its fixable flaws (e.g. homelessness in San Francisco).

> Commonly known in NYC maybe. That view is antiquated in the rest of the US.

Respectfully, I doubt it. People may not _like_ NYC, but ...

- Wall Street - Carnegie Hall -MOMA, etc - As the other poster mentioned, the U.N. - Still tons of movies and shows use NYC as the setting for their story - Broadway, and theatre in the US - A huge part of the publishing industry is in NYC - Along with LA, Nashville, and Atlanta, NYC is one of the hearts of the US music industry.

And I’m sure there’s plenty I missed that we all could add to the list given a little time.

Those all seem like pretty obvious and objective markers identifying NYC as a US, if not world cultural, financial, and political hub.

This is deflecting. I was not arguing at all that NYC isn’t a global power and important city. I’ve been in more live able ones though.

> (objectively)

Ok.

I don’t really agree with your opinion (especially as someone that came from the ‘burbs and if your primary experience is the LES, which is a fun area, but one of the grungier areas), but regardless, fwiw, Bloomberg tried to ban cars in Manhattan, but that plan was rejected. People love their cars here, even if they are in the minority. But it’s progressing, slowly. More bike lanes are being built. Broadway is slowly being converted to pedestrian-only piece by piece.

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