ICSC CEO Mike Kercheval (a friend and past colleague) is justifiably relieved and buoyed by the rebounding attendance at this week’s annual RECON event in Las Vegas. My cab driver’s convention sheet listed expected arrivals of 30,000, but Mike reported thousands more as last minute walk-ins inflated the pre-registrations. And the convention booth area was packed to the gills after the past few lackluster years. The big retail event will be hard pressed to ramp up again to the 2006, 2007 attendance peaks of 50,000, but the renewed interest reinforces the notion of ongoing (albeit modest) recovery in U.S. retail real estate.

It was pretty obvious at the convention that the real action in the retail universe has shifted outside the U.S. and away from Europe to markets like China, India and Brazil where burgeoning middle-class populations with more disposable income look to secure the trappings of affluent lifestyles. While America’s standard of living ebbs, these countries offer significant opportunities for exporting U.S. development acumen. Industry leaders also are focusing increasingly on the Latin American, if for no other reason than to figure out how to market better to the increasingly influential and enlarging Hispanic population in the U.S. On panels and in seminars a consistent theme was discussing how to tap the Latin wellspring. Joel Kotkin, the author and trends analyst, made that point repeatedly with me in our general session presentation on Monday.

We also talked about how the now long-in-the-tooth stand-alone “town center” mall concept of the 1970s and 1980s needs to transform into a “back-to-the-future” true town center or village configuration incorporating residential elements and linking more directly to surrounding neighborhoods and commercial districts. Old school one-off land use planning—a subdivision here, a strip center there, and mall over yonder—needs to change, integrating projects and neighborhoods together with proper infrastructure improvements and open space for parks and recreation where possible.