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Depending so heavily on the automobile was the key decision. Even now it might hamper many such efforts, because most malls seem to be surrounded by a huge Pele

Depending so heavily on the automobile was the key decision. Even now it might hamper many such efforts, because most malls seem to be surrounded by a huge Pelennor Field of hot asphalt and hemmed in by freeways or wide boulevards that might have pedestrian facilities as sort of an afterthought. So they really had better strive to be self-contained and offer everything someone might need.

ethbro 6y ago
This was mostly driven by economics. It's cheaper to pave everything in sight vs build multi-story parking decks + greenspace. And local zoning boards / politicians were only happy to hand out passes, as commercial taxes pay for things that get votes. So I'd say less a willful decision than a lack of powerful opponents. It's not even clear who sufficiently powerful opponents of that type of development would have been / are? State or federal EPA?
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  The problem, IMO, has always been that after the World Wars we failed to come up with regional governance for metros, so that we could not curb the worst excesses of formerly rural counties undercutting each other for an adrenaline shot of increased tax base from suburban development, without properly accounting for the lifecycle cost of infrastructure. It is also a lot harder for individual developers to lobby a single regional government than it is for them to play smaller localities off of each other. Washington state created the Growth Management Act in 1990. For the most part, urban boundaries have stopped expanding, and coincidentally the mall being used as the poster child for this article is located in Seattle.
  - ethbro 6y ago
    Well put! It's an interesting co-evolution (or lack of) with dramatically scaled corporations, as well. Pre-interstate, you didn't have as much consolidation of firms (e.g. local burger vs McDonald's, local inn vs Marriott). The national firms that did exist tended to be in higher-capital industries (e.g. transportation or resource extraction). So firms grew in scale and power from the 1950s+, but government structures did not. With the end result of pitting Lilliputian local governments against nation-spanning corporations.

ethbro 6y ago

This was mostly driven by economics. It's cheaper to pave everything in sight vs build multi-story parking decks + greenspace. And local zoning boards / politicians were only happy to hand out passes, as commercial taxes pay for things that get votes. So I'd say less a willful decision than a lack of powerful opponents. It's not even clear who sufficiently powerful opponents of that type of development would have been / are? State or federal EPA?

bobthepanda 6y ago
The problem, IMO, has always been that after the World Wars we failed to come up with regional governance for metros, so that we could not curb the worst excesses of formerly rural counties undercutting each other for an adrenaline shot of increased tax base from suburban development, without properly accounting for the lifecycle cost of infrastructure. It is also a lot harder for individual developers to lobby a single regional government than it is for them to play smaller localities off of each other. Washington state created the Growth Management Act in 1990. For the most part, urban boundaries have stopped expanding, and coincidentally the mall being used as the poster child for this article is located in Seattle.
- ethbro 6y ago
  Well put! It's an interesting co-evolution (or lack of) with dramatically scaled corporations, as well. Pre-interstate, you didn't have as much consolidation of firms (e.g. local burger vs McDonald's, local inn vs Marriott). The national firms that did exist tended to be in higher-capital industries (e.g. transportation or resource extraction). So firms grew in scale and power from the 1950s+, but government structures did not. With the end result of pitting Lilliputian local governments against nation-spanning corporations.