system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
Also, malls have pretty minimal plumbing.  You'd have to add a *lot* of pipes to convent a mall into residential.
gpt
There is a good chance that the city infrastructure to the mall would even have to be upgraded. Higher demand for water, sewer, and electricity. A lot of people don’t consider how zoning works. The city and developers don’t usually oversize dedicated infrastructure to things like commercial or industrial areas, but use calculations based on occupancy.