Compare to the Stanford Shopping Center, an outdoor mall on the SF peninsula. Parking is difficult when the weather is nice, and sometimes even when it's not.

Compare to the Stanford Shopping Center, an outdoor mall on the SF peninsula. Parking is difficult when the weather is nice, and sometimes even when it's not. It's a nice place to walk around outdoors and designed to be pedestrian-friendly (once you park, of course). By comparison, I went to the Hillsdale Shopping Center a few months ago on a weekday around noon, and the Sears lot was near-deserted: I saw about six cars in it. The food court was also empty and depressing. I don't think the difference is primarily the neighborhoods: both are on El Camino and in upscale areas (Palo Alto is expensive, sure, but Hillsdale serves San Mateo, San Carlos, Burlingame, and Hillsborough, which aren't cheap). I think the difference is the mall itself: Hillsdale is a traditional massive indoor mall of the sort that this article describes, and Stanford is a better-designed outdoor mall, with segments split up, that's just nicer to walk around.