Compare to the Stanford Shopping Center, an outdoor mall on the SF peninsula. Parking is difficult when the weather is nice, and sometimes even when it's not.

It's a nice place to walk around outdoors and designed to be pedestrian-friendly (once you park, of course).

By comparison, I went to the Hillsdale Shopping Center a few months ago on a weekday around noon, and the Sears lot was near-deserted: I saw about six cars in it. The food court was also empty and depressing. I don't think the difference is primarily the neighborhoods: both are on El Camino and in upscale areas (Palo Alto is expensive, sure, but Hillsdale serves San Mateo, San Carlos, Burlingame, and Hillsborough, which aren't cheap).

I think the difference is the mall itself: Hillsdale is a traditional massive indoor mall of the sort that this article describes, and Stanford is a better-designed outdoor mall, with segments split up, that's just nicer to walk around.