The Americana at Brand is one of those hybrid residential/commercial developments that sprung up like weeds during the housing bubble, featuring high-end boutique shops and restaurants with condos on top of them. They’re basically the next-generation mall, carrying on the long tradition pioneered by Southern California, of creating quasi-high-density pseudo-urban experiences in the setting of a private development (see also the Paseo Colorado, L.A. Live, The Grove, Universal City Walk, Downtown Disney, etc.)

What strikes me about these places is that they feel like completely Disneyfied, miniaturized versions of actual real cities. Sort of like what Vegas did with New York, New York, or Paris, or the Venetian, etc. It’s a freaking theme park, really, attempting to recreate the things that make the urban environment interesting, while trying to leave out the supposed scary, unsavory parts (which are frequently the things that actually make the urban environment interesting.) “Potemkin village” is a phrase that frequently pops into my head.

Nonetheless, I find myself at the Americana at Brand often. Mostly because of the Barnes and Noble, which is nowhere near as accessible as it used to be when it was on the corner of Glendale Ave and California Ave. (The e-reader my brother got me for Christmas is mouldering somewhere in my room, mostly because the stupid dead-tree periodicals that I would actually prefer reading on an e-reader refuse to release the electronic version before the dead-tree version. Oh well.)

But as I walked out of Barnes and Noble after making my purchase, the sound system for the entire development was playing “So Close” from the Disney movie “Enchanted”, right when the instrumental swells and climaxes, and as I followed the trolley tracks back to the parking structure, I totally felt like I was at Disneyland at the end of the day, walking through Main Street, U.S.A.