{"id":3208,"date":"2012-07-18T17:40:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T17:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/?p=3208"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:24:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:24:54","slug":"a-new-generation-of-malls-track-downtown-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2012\/07\/a-new-generation-of-malls-track-downtown-again\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Generation of Malls Track Downtown, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">We grew up as planners learning that shopping malls sapped downtown of its energy&#8211;whether it was small town retailers wiped out by the mall just over the county line or urban retail boulevards gutted of life as suburbanites left the city to follow jobs and the shopping followed them.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, downtowns began to reimage themselves as malls. Beginning in 1980, The National Trust for Historic Preservation&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preservationnation.org\/main-street\/\">Main Street program <\/a>was based on that very premise, organizing disparate retailers to work together on signage, opening hours, seasonal sales, and marketing.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3209\" style=\"width: 431px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3209\" class=\" wp-image-3209\" title=\"9-67_MainStreet\" src=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/9-67_MainStreet-1024x698.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"421\" height=\"320\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3209\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yes, I know this is Disney. I&#8217;m trying to make a snarky point<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Federal Realty took it one step further, simply buying up retail streets in places like Westport, Connecticut and Bethesda, Maryland to create a single, curated retail environment from brick pavers to street trees.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3210\" style=\"width: 448px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3210\" class=\" wp-image-3210\" title=\"Bethesda row sidewalk nighttime-cnu\" src=\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Bethesda-row-sidewalk-nighttime-cnu.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"438\" height=\"326\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3210\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than a place to do errands<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As main streets became newly invigorated environments drawing people to hang out, stroll, and by-the-way, spend money,\u00a0shopping malls emptied out.\u00a0Now, malls are again tracking downtown, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/07\/18\/business\/malls-take-on-the-internet-by-stressing-the-experience.html?pagewanted=2\">this New York Times article <\/a>notes, by becoming more experiential places.<\/p>\n<p>Though the article focuses on online competition for mall retail, one executive is quoted, \u201cIt\u2019s not just about shopping \u2014 it\u2019s multidimensional; it\u2019s a place you can just hang out and go for a stroll,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re not doing that in a mall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sounds like main street to me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">We grew up as planners learning that shopping malls sapped downtown of its energy&#8211;whether it was small town retailers wiped out by the mall just over the county line or urban retail boulevards gutted of life as suburbanites left the city to follow jobs and the shopping followed them.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, downtowns began to reimage themselves as malls. Beginning in 1980, The National Trust for Historic Preservation&#8217;s Main Street program was based on that very premise, organizing disparate retailers to work together on signage, opening hours, seasonal sales, and marketing.<\/p>\n<p>Federal Realty took it one step further, simply buying up retail streets in places like Westport, Connecticut and Bethesda, Maryland to create a single, curated retail environment from brick &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/2012\/07\/a-new-generation-of-malls-track-downtown-again\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[299,5],"tags":[414,416,415,413,336,14,412],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-places","category-planning","tag-downtowns","tag-federal-realty","tag-glimcher-realty","tag-main-street","tag-new-york-times","tag-retail","tag-shopping-malls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11052,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/11052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}