Urban designer Peter Calthorpe has a plan for the shuttered and financially troubled strip malls that dot the suburban landscape: Convert the malls into housing that would be part of green communities where people could be closer to their jobs and get out of their cars.
These buildings were built cheap as possible and were not intended for habitation. They usually have huge high ceilings which are really inefficient, minimal insulation, generally shitty and uncomfortable to live in. They’re generally in the middle of nowhere, with poor access unless you’re driving. It also seems weird how the ideas around affordable housing always revolves around how to use the least desireable cast-offs of the last couple decades.