Father Of The Mall

Victor Gruen invented the enclosed mall, and Alfred Taubman "perfected it." What were they thinking?

1 minute read

March 20, 2004, 1:00 PM PST

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech

"There is a tendency in America to wax nostalgic for the traditional downtown, but those who first believed in the malland understood its potentialfound it hard to look at the old downtown with anything but frustration...Shopping centers and strip malls became what urban planners call 'catalytic,' meaning that developers werent building them to serve existing suburban communities; they were building them on the fringes of cities, beyond residential developments, where the land was cheapest."

Thanks to Camille Kirk

FULL STORY: The Terrazzo Jungle

Monday, March 8, 2004 in The New Yorker

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