From shopping centers to lifestyle centers

I WAS SHOCKED the first time I went to Universal CityWalk, several months after it opened in 1993. I'd read all about the place beforehand. Social critics had proclaimed it the new white-flight fortress against the crime, disorder and diversity of real city life. It exemplified "a Victorian-style separation of classes in our public life," wrote Norman Klein. George Will called CityWalk "a melancholy comment on metropolitan America." Mike Davis said, "It fulfills our worst prophecies." At best, CityWalk was a fake city, built for customers who, in Lewis Lapham's words, "had no intention of going to see the original city four miles to the south."

By Virginia Postrel

December 10, 2006