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I’ve seen a similar thing happen in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, but with a twist. When there were no malls, all the high end shops were located at the center in

by seer 8y ago

I’ve seen a similar thing happen in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, but with a twist. When there were no malls, all the high end shops were located at the center in the pedestrian friendly zone. Then they started building them like crazy, all the shops moved there, and the center started dying. But something interesting happened, since it was still valuable real estate, those people didn’t go down easy - all those former shops turned into restaurants, cafes and bars. And the center became much more inviting, and markedly more “alive” than when it was in effect an outdoor mall. So now people go to the malls to buy stuff, and go to the center to hangout, and I think everyone is happy. Though among those restaurants new shops have started opening as you know, they go where the people are at, but the malls are still going strong. Maybe once the online shopping thing hits Bulgaria properly the malls would close/transform, but people would still flock to the center for all the recreational places.

flexie 8y ago
I noticed the same. Other factors played in too. Around the time the malls came to Sofia, the municipality also started renovating the main streets in the city center turning Vitoshka into a real pedestrian street and building proper sidewalks on others (like Shisman). The renovations are still going on (Solunska, Graf Ignatiev) and this will only accelerate the process of turning the city center into a recreational area. It's really nice to see how new restaurants, bars, juice bars, soup places, sandwich places, and cafes pop up on streets just months after they have been renovated. Other factors accelerating the process has been the large expansion of the metro, which happened at the same time as the malls were being being built, the renovation of tram tracks, purchase of decent trams, and the almost complete replacement of the old city buses with modern ones, all of which has given people from the neighborhoods easier access to the city center (which has never been very accessible by car). Sofia is slowly becoming a modern metropolis.

by seer 8y ago

flexie 8y ago

I noticed the same. Other factors played in too. Around the time the malls came to Sofia, the municipality also started renovating the main streets in the city center turning Vitoshka into a real pedestrian street and building proper sidewalks on others (like Shisman). The renovations are still going on (Solunska, Graf Ignatiev) and this will only accelerate the process of turning the city center into a recreational area. It's really nice to see how new restaurants, bars, juice bars, soup places, sandwich places, and cafes pop up on streets just months after they have been renovated. Other factors accelerating the process has been the large expansion of the metro, which happened at the same time as the malls were being being built, the renovation of tram tracks, purchase of decent trams, and the almost complete replacement of the old city buses with modern ones, all of which has given people from the neighborhoods easier access to the city center (which has never been very accessible by car). Sofia is slowly becoming a modern metropolis.