In this third episode in our series on terrible land uses and everything that makes them bad for cities, we tackle Lifestyle Centers. We’ll look at the history of this type of outdoor shopping mall, which dates back to the 1980s, refine our definition of what it is, and use our case study to examine all the things that make them great…or heinous.
At the heart of today’s video is a case study on Town Square Las Vegas, a typical lifestyle center located on Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip), a bit south of the resort corridor. We’ll look at all the things that go into its particular brand of simulated urbanism: the streetscapes, the architecture, the fixtures and furnishings, the plazas. And the we’ll zoom out and look at how Town Square interfaces with the regional transportation system and nearby land uses — and it isn’t a pleasant story.
All this — and much more! Hope you “enjoy.”
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Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
– Simulated Urbanism: https://youtu.be/aGjc-gsh834
– Transit On the Las Vegas Strip: https://youtu.be/u5lqV7y2KXw
– Drive-Thrus: https://youtu.be/jlwuVmf1LG0
– Power Centers: https://youtu.be/D2Pj6TcNP6Y
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Resources:
– Sin City Smash (for your next date night): https://sincitysmash.com/
– https://www.wealthmanagement.com/news/investors-want-know-what-defines-lifestyle-center
– https://flightaware.com/live/airport/KLAS
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Images
– bicep emoji By Emoji One, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37428204
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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (YouTube music library)
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Inquiries: [email protected]
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3:49 aaaand like that, you have made me feel more at home that I imagined I would be. I guess airplanes are THE indicator species of a lifestyle center, even in Europe.
as a bay area resident, i would propose that you look a little closer at santana row. not only is it not "not completely terrible" (completely soulless and bland), but it's literally across the street from a legacy indoor mall (valley fair). what the actual fuck were the planners thinking?!
oh, and the cheesecake factory is in the old indoor mall across the street.
Private developments like this partly exist because the developers have more control over undesirables creating problems in their community than if they were on a public street and had to ask the municipal police to do everything for them. If you don't want to drive people into private-street suburbs and private malls, you have to prosecute or expel the people in cities who chase customers and businesses away. Shoplifters, muggers, vagrants, drug addicts, and looters have done a great job of hollowing out the retail core in places like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.
I like these. I wish they would build them here!
The parking could be better. Maybe underground parking could help with land use efficiency.
Ok, I’ll say it. The “Smash Room” first date sounds hot.
Feels weird that the stadium sub count check era is finally over 😢
The satellite view zoom out really got me.
This is the most disgusting type of American urbanism you have shown in your channel to date: isolated, classist, flashy and non authentical and trying to create what zoning and nimbysim impedes to emerge spontaneously. Greetings from Bogotá
As soon as you said Vegas I just knew you were going critique Downtown Summerlin…..Oops.
Lol! So funny
Ha, you weren't kidding about the planes. It felt like I was watching the newer Special Editions of the original Star Wars trilogy. Ya know, the parts where Lucas kept adding the unnecessary CGI dewbacks and stormtroopers in Tattoine or that Banta herd in the third one.
Las Vegas is the worst! Boston has lifestyle centers too, but at least Assembly Row in Somerville has an Orange Line Train Station.
Reminds me of South Park's SoDoSoPa where you can get some City Chicken and Red Robster.
No! Keep doing the stadiums! It’s a tradition. It doesn’t have to be satellite. You can just do an “artist” rendition (bad drawing) or something else & even go to fictional stadiums when you run out of real ones!
Unrelated to this video, you've inspired me to get back in the habit of taking transit whenever I reasonably can.
Related to this video, well, these things are weird and surreal.
Everyone on the west side of Cleveland goes to and raves about Crocker Park in Westlake, Ohio. Saying things like "I love just walking around" or "there's so much to do here" yet completely oblivious to the fact they drove from their desolate suburban neighborhood to a free parking spot at this artificially urban place. It's like they almost get it…but alas
The Uptown Mall in Victoria, BC tries to be both a lifestyle centre and a power centre at the same time. Lifestyle centre with fake downtown near the Wal-mart on the lower mall level, and full-on power centre (complete with Whole ~Paycheque~Foods) that's a nightmare to walk across on the upper level. The city finally broke down and installed a pedestrian-controlled light midway on the stroad after a number of pedestrians were killed trying to cross over to the strip mall on the other side.
9:55 woooo Hollywood Theater!
"professionalization of gaming", you're an earlier lad so it's ok, they did the same with Chess years ago.
Excellent as always.
I would love to see you examine Australian urban planning and compare it to America.
This is easily the most depressing video I've seen of yours since that one about super, mega, ultra freeway interchanges. I think we're so bad at land use because we have too much of it. Maybe if we lived on a small island like Japan we'd do better…
Love the Yard House reference if only because New York City’s only Yard House is in our closest equivalent to a Lifestyle Center: Times Square.
The whole video I was thinking of The Glen Town Center as the only place with a Yardhouse near my home town. All the suburbanites were so excited in the early 2000s for their new ‘downtown’ when the actual downtown of their town was crumbling
Have you had a look at the Australian experience of lifestyle centres. I would recommend having a look at Rouse Hill town centre, in north west Sydney.
It's too bad they can't put like four stories of housing on top of all those weird facades… it'd be like a little walled city
There’s a sweet Revolutionary War fort directly in the flight path of PHL. I believe it’s called Fort Mifflin…like, the 2nd half of Dunder-Mifflin.
Seems like a better place for plane watching to me than a Forever21 parking lot.
Lifestyle centers seem to be one of Tesla’s favorite locations for Superchargers. I guess that’s some demographic context
Whenever I've driven through a dead main street in the mid west, I've always wondered if you could repopulate all the beautiful old buildings with departments from a single company (like Wal Mart) and revitalize it as a lifestyle center? You can recognize what used to be the bank, the drug store, the movie theater, the clothing store, the appliance store, the camera store, the florist, etc. Keep the front facades, dress up the street and sidewalks, put parking moats in the back, and spread parts of Wal Mart all over town.
i would LOVE a video about older theaters getting ruined by new AMCs and cinemarks. the theater you showed from oakland is famous for the lettering on it, but i dont think in all the years ive lived in the bay ive actually ever been outside, but ive walked past it a million times
town square is terrible and there’s a reason why the upper floors and edges are empty
17:59 I've gleefully told out-of-state friends that the Winchester Mystery House is utterly surrounded by some of the most densely commercial development in the area and bracketed by major highways, despite how carefully they frame the building's glamour shots to suggest it's in a parklike area. I don't know why this entertains me so. Something about the denial, maybe some species of apocalypse fever. I wonder how much they spend in a year just scrubbing road dirt off the building.