Fathers ran with their kids on the grass. Seniors laughed while sitting in overstuffed chairs. Toddlers played in a sandbox. School children sold 50 cent cups of lemonade for charity. And people shopped.

Welcome to Carusoland.. also known as the “Americana at Brand” in Glendale.

As with his previous projects there will be a small chorus of  critics who will lament its “artificiality” (like a friend who was devestated when he build “the Grove” next to the beloved Farmers Market). Those critics would love nothing better than to see such a project collapse in debt and disinterest. So far, from Thousand Oaks to Fairfax,  just the opposite has happened.

Instead the intellectual elites who tisk-tisk such places at “artificial” should instead gage not the buildings but the people who visit them. There is nothing make-believe about the reaction. They like it. They love it.  Those with money who shop at the upscale stores subsidize a free park for those who just come for the scenery and conversation.  Retirees can sit and enjoy the water fountain symphony without paying a dime. Families pinching pennies in a tight economy can take their children to the playground without any worry of finding a hyperdermic needle in the sand. And there is no evidence of plastic. With gold plated statues and marble counters at the parking kiosk this place is built as if it where hosting an OPEC conference.

That dynamic, and the public’s reaction has recently softened the criticism. The Los Angeles Times Magazine not long ago did a remarkable piece on The Grove where it talked about how the center had become part of the neighborhood (complete with people jogging on its pedestrian street early in the morning before the stores opened). 

Now the criticism is more subtle. Christoper Hawthorne, the LA Times archetecture critic, today wrote about the public-private partnership involving the two acre park space (which is owned not by Caruso but by the city) He wonders why that space needs to be patrolled by Caruso’s private security. “If the private cops, who will be backed up by a substation staffed by Glendale police, start breaking up pickup soccer games or taking away skateboards, they (condo and apartment residents at the site)  may even start resenting it.”

I doubt it.

Perhaps it is a bit sad that the safe and beautiful is now being provided through the  private and not the public. But ever since we decided to treat the mentally ill by dumping them on the street we have lost contact with much of our park space and communal areas. The critics hate the fact that the streets of a place like “Americana” are controlled and that it lakes the grittiness of a true urban center. But isn’t it allowable to give people a small refuge from panhandlers once in awhile?

It should not be a suprise that Caruso was inspired by Walt Disney and that his Caruso Affiliated contracts with Disney designers when building their “lifestyle centers”. In fact, Disneyland came to mind yesterday while spending a few hours at the Americana.  While  Glendale has long been the home to Walt Disney Imagineering the city finally found some of the old man’s pixie dust.

And Glendale is a better place for it.