[wburg]

I don't mind Downtown Plaza, although I pretty much only go to Macy's or pass through on my way to Old Sacramento. It certainly doesn't seem dead to me, and the last time I went to Arden Fair Mall there were just as many young toughs puttering around there as at Downtown Plaza.

I agree with BrianSac that an urban mall is going to have a more tolerant atmosphere for the poor and weird. Speaking as one of the weird and until fairly recently poor, it seems silly that Sacramento can't be a "real city" until the poor and weird are...dealt with...somehow, while other cities seem to succeed despite these apparent handicaps. Heck, have any of you ever been to Union Square in San Francisco and *not* been spare-changed?

Although, I must admit, Downtown Plaza has never been my favorite place: it is, very deliberately, a slice of suburbia plopped in the middle of a city. It is a holdover from an era when cities, tall buildings and people living downtown were considered very bad things, and trying to emulate suburbia in an urban setting was considered a very good thing, even if it was economically unviable.

Malls are retail versions of the suburban home: low to the ground and interior-centric, surrounded by open space to suggest dominion over a wide territory and provide space for the automobile. The focus is on the inside, while the outside is bunker-like. For the urban dweller, who likes walking around and experiencing the outside of buildings, malls are always going to be disappointments.

While shopping downtown is nice, a downtown shopping mall is kind of a loser idea. It has taken a few decades for this lesson to sink in.