Plenty of Parking

Department stores solve the problem of how to lure in shoppers, by offering every product imaginable. But shoppers now arrive in cars, so the new problem is finding a parking space. If you can't find a spot, you keep driving.

This is sensibly solved by integrating parking with shopping. Sears is an early innovator in Chicago, building its first mega-stores in suburban areas, where they can provide adjacent parking lots.

Americans everywhere are falling in love with their cars. Communities that coddle motorists are the trend-setters, while those that don't are left behind. Soon enough, everyone gets the message.
Strip mall shopping centers, 1940s

  Park and Shop
Americans living out in the suburbs naturally take to their cars for almost everything, and many are proud of their new vehicles. Personal vehicles increase the range of shopping opportunities beyond the limits of public transit systems, with handy back seats to load up with shopping bags. Suburban shopping centers, with dedicated parking, spring up almost spontaneously.

Bigger parking lots, 1940s

  Bigger Lots
The trend toward car-centric shopping arises naturally out west, where there is still plenty of room to spread out. Whether in town, or sprinkled down the highway, businesses find lots of available real estate. But suburbs everywhere are in a similar condition, with plenty of cars and lots of opportunities to create new shopping venues. Commercial strips grow into shopping centers.


California-style drive-ins, 1940s

  Delivered to Your Window
The American romance with cars can be traced back to its earliest days in Los Angeles. Today, LA is a sprawling snarl of freeways, but in the 1940s it's ground zero for new ways to serve customers, who can now dine in the comfort of their own cars.