I know that a lot of Seaport/Fort Point residents complain about the lack of a real park in the neighborhood, and that's a legitimate critique -- there absolutely should be a sizable park somewhere that offers different types of amenities for everyone. But, large parks aside, the amount of space in the Seaport that's dedicated solely to car-free lingering, congregating, and/or strolling is just incredible. Everything shaded black in the below is currently a welcoming, pedestrian-only space:
And this map doesn't even account for the fact that the streets between Congress and Seaport Blvd and Northern Ave and the harbor all effectively operate as woonerfs.
The Seaport still does feel like an outdoor mall to an extent. But I wonder if that's less a result of the focus on high-end retail (the Back Bay has plenty of that and doesn't get saddled with that critique) and more with the fact that some of these areas feel and operate very much like mall atriums. Of course, since malls were only trying to emulate great urbanism in the first place, this is a good thing, even if it can feel a little uncanny at first.