Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 4-2020 Understanding the Resiliency of the Kalamazoo Mall Emily Szymanski Western Michigan University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the Geography Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons Recommended Citation Szymanski, Emily, "Understanding the Resiliency of the Kalamazoo Mall" (2020). Master's Theses. 5119. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/5119 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. UNDERSTANDING THE RESILIENCY OF THE KALAMAZOO MALL by Emily Szymanski A thesis submitted to the Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Geography Western Michigan University April 2020 Thesis Committee: Benjamin Ofori-Amoah, Ph.D., Chair Lisa DeChano-Cook, Ph.D. Rebecca Harvey. Copyright by Emily Szymanski 2020 UNDERSTANDING THE RESILIENCY OF THE KALAMAZOO MALL Emily Szymanski, M.S. Western Michigan University, 2020 The Kalamazoo Mall is the first pedestrian mall in the United States. Since then the Mall has gone through many changes. The Mall was first created to be a completely pedestrian-friendly space closed off to cars and to help revitalize the downtown after suburban mall competition. However, the Mall did not keep people downtown as expected, resulting in the reintroduction of automobile traffic in two of the four blocks of the Mall.