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.
unfortunately, rezoning is a thing which is difficult to achieve and constantly fought against, so it’s unlikely massive movement in this respect will happen across america, but this is yet another novel weapon in the arsenal of densifying american cities.