these anti-modernists on this forum are just TOO funny.
just because plazas in texas cities and other very non-urban cities are dead, vacant, and cold, doesn't mean every open space is by default the same. the reason they are that way in so many cities is because they don't make sense any setting other than a dense urban area. if you've ever been to berlin paris or copenhagen, cities that have a lot of GIANT open areas (plazas, squares, whatever you wanna call them) you'd understand how vital they are. or if you've ever been here to chicago, i'd think a person was crazy if they told me that daley or federal plaza are not two of the greatest urban spaces in the world. these great big open spaces allow a person to step back away from the dense world around them and take it all in.
i'm from houston, and as a kid i always thought the same thing and wondered why there were plazas at the bottom of every building. and then when i went out into the world, i discovered that the great urban cities of the world use those plazas in a way that is beyond words how wonderful they are.
here is a drawing by the master that very clearing illustrates the vitality of open space in a dense urban center:
also, Atomic Glee, you do know that huge plazas in front of buildings in NOT a modernist invention... it actually comes out of the classical world, which i thought you loved?