Hacker News Reader

Comment by 6cxs2hd6 | Hacker News Reader

Instead of "reinventing malls", how about "reinventing" what's left of the downtown shopping district in cities and towns?

I think the only way to compete with online shopping and with Wal-Mart, is with an experience that goes beyond efficient commerce. Some people, some of the time, will gravitate toward an authentic in-person social environment that is interesting overall, and which happens to include interesting shops.

This also tends to make the place more interesting for tourists, which at least up to a point can have a beneficial impact

View on HN

You get it. We need to fix a lot of American mass transit infrastructure though to make this feasible. Getting into the city is not easy or cheap in many places in the United States. And we cannot just rely on the cheap trick of using parking garages and highways to get people into the city anymore - that's part of what killed cities in the first place.

Mass transit is OK for commuters who can tolerate the homeless-shelter-on-wheels aspect of it, but not good for shoppers, since it limits your per-trip purchases to what you can carry.

In Kentucky (and probably the midwest in general), mass transit effectively does not exist.

I'm in the midwest and I agree. You need a certain critical mass of population density and enough common destinations for mass transit to work. From what I can tell, this is a lot higher than the population needed to sustain a mall.

Our town does have a bus system but most of them drive around empty or nearly so most of the time. We also have a decent indoor mall and several outdoor "big box store" shopping centers which all seem to be surviving if not thriving.

Stores should offer purchase and deliver. Basically we should begin to treat stores as showrooms.

I agree, and I'm definitely thinking of larger cities, in part.

I'm also thinking of smaller towns. People may drive there, park, then walk around and enjoy it -- and spend money. There are towns like this around New England, for example. They're destinations people want to visit or live in. If instead the town had a Wal-Mart, it wouldn't be the same economic benefit to the town. Who would visit for that?

Of course even better if there were rail service to the town. I'm not disagreeing with you, there. I'm just pointing out that this isn't only an urbanista issue. I think it matters as much, maybe even more so, for smaller cities and towns.

>Instead of "reinventing malls", how about "reinventing" what's left of the downtown shopping district in cities and towns?

This is happening, big time.

It is insane, when I was growing up the downtown was scary. Not only were there very few places to go, it was crime ridden and a blight. If you wanted to go shopping or to a restaurant you had to go to the suburbs, mostly the suburban mall. In the last several years, downtown has completely transformed. I live far away and ever time I come back there is TONS of new stuff there. About 6-7 years ago I now see the few things that were starting to come in was the beginnings of this revitalization.

Downtown shopping is dead; malls can do the shopping experience much better. They can control more of the experience (and keep out undesirables), and don't have to share street space with government buildings or random non-consumer businesses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com