Of our surviving malls, they all had to go through a big redesign, to try to steer into the 'hang out' sentiment. Lot's of more higher end dining, a park, apartments/hotels/office space, a few small performance venues for bands.

A mall that has all of that now was, before the renovation, was department stores and specialty shops connected as spartan and efficiently as possible, with a fast food court for convenience but nothing you'd really want to sit longer than you absolutely had to. To the extent it worked as a teen hangout it was because they could grab some cheap food, be inside under a generic roof outside any stores, they could giggle at the stuff in Spencer's Gifts.