Salt Lake City is famous for three things: our mountains (though if you ask anyone who tried to ski this year, whatever snow they were sprinkled in was a far cry from the greatest); The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its requisite temple; and the prodigious size of our families.

However, if you walk — or more likely, drive — down just about any street in Salt Lake City, you would be hard pressed to notice that we’re graced with more kids per capita than any other state.

As a mother of two, a lifelong Salt Lake resident and a recent (though comparatively old) graduate of the University of Utah’s undergraduate architecture program, these things have been top of mind lately.

From the trendy brunch joints to the plethora of new studio apartments, it would be easy to imagine that our city was built to serve the recent influx of thirty-something imports. In many ways, it has been. Even in the further reaches of the valley, rarely are you graced with the sight of a stroller out on parade. It’s not until you make your way to the shady depths of a place like Sugarhouse Park that you find any evidence of children.

One such enclave can be found tucked away in our newest shopping destination. Even early on a Thursday, not yet 11 a.m., the City Creek Mall food court rings out with the laughter of children. A strange soccer-inspired indoor ceramic garden offers a place for little ones to run around, while their parents — read: mothers — chat on one of the benches ringing the walled enclosure.

The restrooms, too far away for a desperate toddler, offer swanky marble changing counters, though I can’t imagine infants prefer them over the cool but pliable plastic of a standard fold-down. And good luck finding a footstool or low sink. (A phenomenon infuriatingly common in this city. It would seem that clean hands are not something we value in those under three feet tall.)

Beyond the food court, toy stores, kid’s fashion and novelty treat shops create a merry procession towards the sky bridge. With its far-reaching view down Main Street on one side and the soaring spires of the LDS temple on the other, you might be wowed into forgetting (or perhaps delighted to realize, depending on your moral persuasions) that it also literally elevates you above the poor.

Descending to the lower tier, you’ll find the mall’s namesake burbling gently, surrounded by red sandstone and artistic echoes of animal footprints from a time before capital had its say. Engraved on those stones are signs that say, “No climbing.”

What should be a playful centerpiece becomes an artful display, as untouchable as the real City Creek under our roadways.

Mere moments away is the shiny new mall of my youth, recently listed for sale — again. Although the red sandstone and artificial stream at The Gateway look more or less the same, toddlers play freely in the waters, blithely ignoring the Olympic splashpad nearby. While the broad unshaded plaza works well in early March, when full-time parents are as thirsty for the warm sun on their faces as their office-working counterparts lounging nearby, come July, or the dog days of August, no amount of splashing will make up for the heat.

Although spaces for rest are plentiful, they’re often unused. From the swing-set seats to the kitschy patches of turf, there is a certain playfulness intended in the dressing up of their empty walkways. Too big and unwieldy for small children, they’re also fundamentally unappealing to teens. As Alexandra Lange pointed out in “Meet Me by the Fountain,” teens go to the mall to practice being adults in a safe and contained way. They have no intention nor desire to revisit childhood.

Where the old arcade and food court used to sit, the same amenities now require ID at the door, and the former ice cream shop serves high end cocktails. The teens have been firmly ousted in favor of adult-only entertainment for our newly transplanted residents, and the mall is suffering.

The thing about transplants is they don’t often take root in the places they land. Although City Creek dealt the first and biggest blow to The Gateway, perhaps a new future lies in welcoming young people back in.

Someone: Buy The Gateway, and make the main street a skatepark.

Salt Lake must become a place where our loud and playful citizens are celebrated, not silenced by a harried mother with a coloring book and a bag of cereal.

We must foster in our children a deep and abiding love of this place, because the ones who stay are the ones who make it better. For the rest of us, their loitering and liveliness make for a place to be enjoyed.

Madison Scott is a life-long resident of Salt Lake City and the mother of two children. She recently graduated from the University of Utah’s undergraduate architecture program and will enter the U.’s Master of Architecture program in the fall.

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