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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.