it's completely different than it used to be.

...this is difficult to argue with, and how is it germane? The architectural contrast between City Creek and Crossroads isn't really the point.

In any case, yes, a meticulously urbane yet glaringly insular shopping mall as an informal extension of the mormon headquarter grounds is weird. The majority of people who frequent the mall are weird. The culture and atmosphere is weird. Creepy. Not creepy like 4th west drug addicts, but creepy like Stepford wives. Like clones. I'm guessing you're mormon because of your naivete and the non-sequitur, and that's fine, but surely you must suspect City Creek Mall and the 'culture' infused into it is not normal. I get that it's easy to be hermetic in Utah, but I'll just tell you people from the outside world find this a really odd place. And City Creek is that oddity distilled in pure form.