For a large number of retail and mixed-use projects around the country—and for the communities they serve—the public-private partnership has been a game-changer.

For retail and mixed-use developers (not to mention civic and community leaders) great public spaces are almost always the showpiece: the smiling shoppers and families you see depicted on the website or brochure aren’t paying at a register or strolling through the parking lot—they are sitting on benches, playing in fountains, or taking a relaxing walk along a tree-lined path.

Perhaps no retail environment is more intriguing from an opportunity standpoint today in the United States than our B&C malls: environments that, for various reasons, have seen declining performance and declining value relative to their Class A counterparts.

For decades, prospective homeowners wanted to escape from dense urban centers and builders responded to this demand by constructing vast, far-flung developments of single-family homes and shopping malls.

Toward the end of 2008, it became painstakingly obvious to retailers that impulse spending was out and frugal saving was in.

In a time when every good can be bought on the Internet, creating an experience is what continues to draw shoppers to retail centers.

With the resurgence of planned, high-density ground up and repositioned projects in downtown environments, there is clearly a desire and need to anchor those environments with a strong retail component.

Car2Go users who want to catch a movie or do some shopping will be able to park the vehicles at a new set of spaces at Easton Town Center starting this weekend.

Easton Town Center falls outside the “Home Area” for car2go service, but the car-sharing system is announcing today the addition of 20 dedicated satellite parking spots located on the north and south sides of the property.

Perhaps the best way to begin a discussion about the “urbanization of suburbia”—a concept that has been discussed and debated with increasing frequency in recent years—is to correct a simple misunderstanding: there is no urbanization of suburbia.