The Daily Mall Reader: Gruen & Retail Shopping Nirvana

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"Filling the Doughnut"

TIME Magazine - Friday, Apr. 20, 1962

(Excerpt) For years, downtown storekeepers in the nation's cities have been standing morosely watching all the ladies go by—to the suburban shopping centers. It is the city's biggest dilemma in the age of the automobile: the stores have the goods, but where does the shopper park? After a few more years of this, says Planner-Architect Victor Gruen, the cities of America are going to be like doughnuts—"all the dough on the outside, and a hole in the middle."

To Victor Gruen, 58, a lively Vienna-born leprechaun, solving the problems of the deteriorating downtown has become something of an obsession. The automobile, he says, is downtown's most virulent enemy. "No automobile—not even the most elegant Cadillac—ever bought a thing." Dismount the shopper, free him of driving and parking worries, give him a modern version of the old town square, and the city will be born again.

Read the full article here.