At least in Asia, many people live in apartment blocks which are built directly on top of a mall. So those malls usually local amenities, but then also serve as metro stations and bus hubs to outlying areas. It's the way that the lifestyle is structured that creates this system, and it's hard to see how one might apply the american style suburbs and single homes to this system.

Also modern asian malls are generally much more luxurious than western malls, very clean, air conditioned, with 3 or more floors, ice rinks, pop up events, clean toilets, etc. Many of your local malls of a city would be comparable to the best of an American city, let alone the best of that respective city.