Parking at the periphery

"But where will people park?"  Public garage/lot at end of street--so there should be minimal automobile pass through traffic, and what does pass through will be slowed by geometric design - curb bump-outs all over.

Every bit of walkable urbanism follows the same pattern - parking at the periphery. High Street in Morgantown WV, Shepherdstown WV, Sugarhouse UT, 25 Street Ogden UT, Silver Spring, MD, Pike and Rose in Bethesda, MD, Cary NC. If you want an intact street wall people like to walk along, you've got to put the main parking someplace else--behind the buildings, at the end of the street, in a garage. (Parking tucked under buildings is the preserve of CBD-adjacent areas with high-rise offices).

We've known since Appleyard (pere) that wide streets and heavy traffic limit people's ability to cross the street reflects the friction of crossing is such that the far side of the street is functionally further away. So if you want agglomeration economies of having the things across the street be close, street design needs to reflect it. Any landlord or developer that aspires to have a destination location rather than convenience-oriented strip-retail needs to understand this. Anyone who aspires to TOD needs to understand this. Mall developers understand this.

Because enclosed malls are so auto-dependent, it's easy to miss that they are the original 'pedestrian pocket' of walkable urbanism. Despite the higher cost of enclosure (and heating/cooling all the space), they have become the prime retail location, and no small part of that is because they satisfy the demand for walkable urbanism. Agglomeration economies certainly play a role, but the form matters. Flipping an enclosed mall (stores around a sea of parking) destroys the agglomeration economy--no one is going to walk from one side of the ring, through the parking lot, to visit something on the far side. Even the enclosed mall's 'junior' form -- the lifestyle center--a walkable pedestrian-oriented center strip with stores on both sides, with a parking garage on one end.

Always the same pattern--pedestrian pocket wrapped in retail, with the automobile (largely) exiled to the periphery.