Problem
Shopping centers depend on access: they need locations near major traffic arteries. However, the shoppers themselves don’t benefit from traffic: they need quiet, comfort, and convenience, and access from the pedestrian paths in the surrounding areas.
Solution
Encourage local shopping centers to grow in the form of short pedestrian streets, at right angles to major roads and opening off these roads—with parking behind the shops, so that the cars can pull directly off the road, and yet not harm the shopping street.
Related Patterns
… this pattern helps to complete the Magic of the City (10) and Promenade (31). And, each time a shopping street gets built, it will also help to generate the Web of Shopping (19).
Treat the physical character of the street like any other Pedestrian Street (100) on the Network of Paths and Cars (52), at right angles to major Parallel Roads (23); have as many shops as small as possible — Individually Owned Shops (87); where the shopping street crosses the road, make the crossing wide, giving priority to the pedestrians — Road Crossing (54); parking can easily be provided by a single row of parking spaces in an alley lying behind the shops — all along the backs of the shops, off the alley, with the parking spaces walled, and perhaps even given canvas roofs, so that they don’t destroy the area — Shielded Parking (97), Canvas Roofs (244). Make sure that every shopping street includes a Market of Many Shops (46), and some Housing In Between (48).
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 174.