Book Description

Once a fad that spread through cities across the United States, the pedestrian mall is now the subject of fervent criticism. In the eyes of planners, hundreds of forsaken malls overshadow the handfullof throwing ones, which are therefore seen as exceptions to an otherwise flawed concept. However, the deneraliztion is grossly unfair. As enthusiasm for pedestrian malls increased in cities, many planners ignored underlying demographic and socioeconomic conditions, instead fashioning malls in places that were unsupportive of urban retail. Predictably, many malls failed as a result. This paper uses biserial correlation coefficients and a binary logistic regression model to draw parallels between cities with pedestrian malls and identify place-based factors that impacted their performance, later analyzing the evolution of those same factors to determine whether or not pedestrian malls are likely to succeed in the future despite failing in the past.