I grew up and live in a highly populated area that wasn't completely fucking overrun and hollowed-out by corporate box chains, or like fake-folksy reclaimed barnwood hang out spots that are run by creepy douches with venture capitalist mindsets (though there is still plenty of that). It somehow maintained a shred of (real) character and a shred of (real) mom n pop businesses/restaurants/manufacturing (like the folks who actually grew up here providing services and goods people need). So I naively thought this is what things were like everywhere.

When I hit the road in my twenties and beyond and saw many, many towns in the U.S., I was fucking slackjawed at how utterly flattened every medium-sized city was by the gnawing, howling, void. Either actual ctrl-V-spam towns across the entire U.S. (you would have no way of knowing - beyond humidity levels - where in the entire country you were if you were instantly teleported there), or exactly what OP is describing, where the 'revitalized' district has a patina of authenticity, just enough to trick the suburban herds into thinking they are participating in some kind of culture that's cooler than the clone-stamped neighborhood they just drove from in their 2022 Chevrolet Dreadnought-Class Star Destroyers.