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Comment by jimmaswell | Hacker News Reader

If these downtown areas were suddenly cleaned up, packed full of operating businesses, and had bicycle lanes and everything added overnight, would any customers even show up? I'm not sure how much demand there even is for such a thing outside the online urban development enthusiast crowd.

I got a sense that the "themed strip mall" was put forward with derision but I think people are increasingly going to need more of an incentive to go to these kinds of areas beyond shopping. A historically preserved area that's neat to look at with educational placards/statues, a nice waterfront, an amusement park, really good food, some reason to make the trip. Otherwise personally I'll just order something online or go to a big box store.

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It's politically hard, but otherwise quite possible to redevelop older areas. Old Town in Pasadena, CA is a great example. Old Town was a largely uninhabited and unprosperous commercial area. Mostly through simple policy changes re: urban development, it was completely revitalized. Today, Old Town is pretty much endlessly packed with people and the commercial rents are sky high. It's bustling with shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, luxury apartments, and office spaces.

It doesn't have a water front. There are plenty of older (historic?) brick buildings, which IMHO look much nicer than modern buildings, but the buildings are hardly unique; buildings of this type can be found all over Los Angeles County. It does have lots of excellent restaurants, but I don't see any reason why that couldn't be replicated elsewhere. The restaurants came as a result of the redevelopment, not the other way around.

If we’re talking about a medium density mixed residential / commercial suburbs with walkable streets & a varied housing mix, including local schools and shops then those are usually pretty popular places to live.

The YT channel Not Just Bikes talks about Riverdale in Toronto, Canada here as an example: https://youtu.be/MWsGBRdK2N0?t=521 It has some of the highest house prices in Toronto & that reflects people’s desire to live there.

Zoning into sidely dispersed commercial / residential areas where the only way to get from one to the other is by car is a curse on society.

> Riverdale in Toronto, Canada

Other "streetcar suburbs" are listed in:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

There are multiple in Toronto, all of which were not expensive post-WW2 since downtown was mostly considered 'for immigrants' and all the WASPs moved to the car-centric suburbs. Urban living became cool again in the post-1990s, and now Old Toronto is quite pricey.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Toronto

I don't know about other places, but historic downtown areas in Oregon are pretty consistently packed, especially now. My family just took a trip to a small town mid-week, which is when you can usually get a seat at a restaurant on the "strip". We had to wait nearly two hours for lunch this time. Walking between shops was bordering on bothersome because of the crowds. I can't even fathom how it is on the weekend.

I think it's the 'historic' that matters, healthy downtowns seem to require some specificity and coevolution with the people there. The original comment as I understood it was speculating what would happen if something resembling a healthy downtown was simply dropped into place one day.

Santana Row was pretty much just fabbed from whole cloth and it's really fun.

It's fun for the people in San Jose who don't have many buildings in their city more historic than the 1970s. I just despise San Jose so please disregard my biased statements if I'm off base here. While Santana Row may be fun, it has zero charm to it. Coming from someone who grew up on cobblestone city streets built in the 1700s...

Oh I used to live in London, by St. Saviours, so you know that stuff is old as all heck. I still enjoy new stuff too.

If US cities could remove the collective "no mixed zoning" stick from their asses, that might be possible.

Small businesses are only convenient if they're close. Nobody (within reason) minds if food is 10% more when you can get it last minute just crossing the street. But if it needs to be a "trip" to get there, it's not a survivable approach.

There's only so much you can do with an area like this as a "destination", without being embedded in a healthy community.

However attractive the area is, if you have to make a trip you'll only go there infrequently. Large parts will be dedicated to parking. Transit may be a pain to get there.

Not to say it can't have value - it can be a central point to bring together a larger low density community. But there's only so much need for something like this.

Compare with what is usually meant by a "walkable" area. Medium or high density housing mixed with local businesses. Enough residents within walking distance to support local restaurants and shops even during the week, not only on weekends.

Not a common model in North America unfortunately, the trend is either low density residential housing, or high density condo areas without much commercial or public spaces.

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