In the January 1929 Architectural Record are these photos of a retail/residential development in Evanston, IL on the corner of Chicago and Grove.
This is exactly what they should be building on the corner of Vanowen and Van Nuys Blvd.
Apartments Over Ground Floor Stores: January 1929
Here in Van Nuys 
You’re entirely correct. If you look at old photos (and you do, as do I) that’s basically the template for every Midwestern farm town ever. Going back further it’s the template for much of Europe going back to the 1500s. It WORKS. But it only DOES work at some minimum level civil society, and as you have documented, we are becoming more feral, and fast. So you could get away with it in a place like South Pasadena perhaps, but VN is still on the other side of that ledger. Besides it doesn’t pencil very well.
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