My main complaint about malls is how _loud_ they are: visually and auditory-ly (someone please tell me what the right word is). Malls are crowded, adorned in bright, garish colors, filled with stale food court food smells. There is very little seating other than at food courts, water fountains are hidden far away in some corner, loud music plays almost all the time, or it's noisy because of all the people. In sunny Silicon Valley, parking is a nightmare but there'll only be one bike stand hidden in a 50 acre space. It somehow has all of the worst features of a busy bazaar with almost none of the good (local products, "authentic"-ness, ability to haggle etc). Just standing in a shopping mall stresses me out.
It's possible that the present state of the art of mall design ticks the boxes for the largest audience possible and I'm the weirdo.
My wider (and a bit tangential/ranty) theory is that the most tacky, tasteless and lacking self-control customers are actually the most profitable, hence businesses generally tend to pander to them. It's just much easier to extract unreasonable amounts of money from someone who's unreasonable (an adult child basically) than from someone sensible and reasonable, so for example us techies are not the target for a lot of companies.
The mall only cares about ROI, and providing a nice space for someone to sit and read a book, play hide and seek, host a club meeting, or stage a free play has little obvious monetary value.
Whatever amenities are provided will be carefully balanced against direct extra spending they bring in, instead of abstract civic improvement.
In dense urban areas, malls tend towards the high end and can be quite nice. The Shops at Copley Place in Boston is fairly high end in terms of shops and the architecture is nice. The Westfield in SF is nice in my recollection.
This has been discussed here before, and seems to be a bit of a blind spot for HN. Imagine you live in a place where there's only one "mall" nearby: that's most of America (geographically speaking).
Montreal and Toronto have huge indoor shopping areas connected by subway, I suppose technically they are malls.
Unfortunately they don't have much in the way of documentation about it. I might have to bug them about it when I go home for the holidays.
There are gyms (generally Konami health clubs), food and shopping, and gardens on the rooftop.
And yeah, the first time I saw a Konami gym my mind boggled. Is this how Snake stays in such good shape? Use promo code Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start and get a 30-day free membership!
I live in Toronto and it's wonderful to have nice streets that you can walk and bike on, even at ±30C.
Also, doesn't Montreal have the Underground City specifically for staying out of the cold in the winter?
I used to be much more resilient but now would prefer a warmer climate, bring on global warming!
Denver gets very little precipitation so rain is something that generally is not an issue though.
Sure, they don't completely isolate humans from weather conditions but these solutions significantly improve the livability and prolonged usability of an urbanization, without burning bathtubs of gasoline to keep running.
Humans are not obliged to colonize every single corner of the planet...
But really, it seems like you want a town with more parks.