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I'm happy to see the death of fake public space. Would be nice to see a plaza* built but I know that's asking too much of the USA.

*A pedestrian only square with surrounded by shops, restaurants, etc

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It has happened already:

http://www.thegrovela.com/directory.php

http://www.americanaatbrand.com/directory.php

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/articl...

The security at the latter has hats and green uniforms like park rangers. You can almost forget that it's all private land.

If it has goofy security and its on private land, its still fake public space.

Yes, precisely. But this is what we're building these days. It's not gated, it's open to the street, but it's not a public plaza either. There is even something in their agreement with the city that they can't filter people out.

They were tried in many US cities in the 1970s. And very very few of them succeeded. Most of them ended up looking like the abandoned sets for some bad sci-fi film.

I'm interested in seeing pictures of this. Got an example?

The one I'm most familiar with is Raleigh's Fayetteville St. area. It was renovated a few years ago to go back to a street + sidewalk configuration, and has really had a renaissance, with nightlife and people living downtown.

Before, it looked like this:

http://goodnightraleigh.com/uploaded_images/fayetteville-st-...

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