Mark Morford - My Life Above Pottery Barn

[phusion]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2006/05/03/notes050306.DTL&nl=fix

It began, perhaps, with the rambling communal cancer that is the American tract-home development.

Easily the most unpleasant domestic acne to pockmark the landscape since Wal-Mart Superstores, since T.G.I. Friday's, since Ashlee Simpson, the concept of tract-home living has mangled the way we think of home much like SUVs have inflated the concept of ego, like Cheez Whiz altered the way we think about cheddar. You know: sad, strange and more than a little toxic.

Oh but no, you might argue, tract developments, where every unique architectural idea is exterminated and all personality is beaten down and you can paint your house any color you like so long as it's either pale teal or skin-tumor beige, is good for America, lets the Average 'Merkin Worker buy a real, honest-to-goodness home they otherwise would not be able to afford.

<snip>

But here is the most amazing part: The entire complex is overlaid with more than 500 pricey housing units, whereby you can actually dump 500K to $2 million of your tech-job money on a very precious and only modestly claustrophobic 1,000-square-foot box and actually live directly in the mall, staring out your giant loft window at either the mall parking lot or the interior of the massive shopping plaza itself (your choice) and casually watch the shoppers 15 feet beneath you across the courtyard meander through, say, the Tommy Bahama store. Joy.

[jpgray]

1. Mark's great

And the latest housing craze is not.

[Warpy]

4. Yeah, they did that here, too

built hotels and housing whose main selling point was the proximity to both megamalls.

Personally, I don't get it.

I live in 1952 tract housing, but after 54 years few places resemble the cookie cutter houses they started out being. In fact, mine is probably the most pristine on the block, as long as you don't count the attached garage converted into studio space with a picture window instead of a garage door.

I guess to some people, looking out at the glitz and glitter of retail at its most crass and unnatural is a great view. I imagine the apartments are all done in stainless steel and glass, the only wood either bleached or finished an artificially dark color, plain glass vases holding artistically arranged sticks for that personal touch.

I really don't get it.

[patrice]

2. No way!! Really??? This is a joke right?

People really choose to live in a mall?

And these are the people who are going to be in charge when I'm old!

[phusion]

3. I guess, in a way...

it provides ample people-watching opportunities. Considering the cold and isolated nature of many suburban communities, I can understand the desire to live where you can at least see other people out in "streets." Still, the marriage of community and corporate America is very disconcerting.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. This is a development designed to recreate the old urban model

Housing over retail isn't an odd concept to anyone who has lived in an older city. The difference here is the intentional development of 'neighborhood' in an high density cluster in an area of the country known more for sideways development.

Me, I 'd rather live in an organic neighborhood in an older city than live in a perfect retail paradise but for young singles and empty nesters nearing retirement this is probably not a bad model.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Yes, apartments above shops are common in older cities

though in Britain at least, they tend to be low rent ones (can you imagine what it'll be like in the run up to Christmas? And you get delivery trucks at odd times of the day, and so on).

I wonder if Morford is actually ambivalent about it - for all his "soul destroying" talk earlier, he ends with the "wave to the neighbors". I suspect it could become an OK place to live if it's not over-controlled, and allowed to develop 'organically' too. If the mall keeps a tight rein on the type of stores (or rents determine that), it might stay too antiseptic.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. My guess is that he is having fun with the antiseptic nature of the place.

It's Morford's style.

The concept is not bad in that it creates higher density land use, but I'm afraid the antiseptic nature of the place is part of the design. It's about recreating the look without the bothersome side effects of urban living. I would hazard a guess that Santana Row merchants have strict time windows for deliveries That's the way it has been handled in some older East Coast cities when the residential properties are in the 'luxury' category. The low rent areas put up with delivery trucks at odd hours.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I'd shoot myself if I had to live in a box there.

[papercut]

7. That rumbling you hear is Jane Jacobs...

...spinning in her grave.

[ThomCat]

10. Shoot me now.

Who the hell would want to live in a strip mall?