The Many Factors of Main Street's Decline

Transportation improvement was a major factor toward the decline of main street America.  The airplane, second only to the automobile as the means of transportation, grew up on the outskirts of cities.  Prior to that, a city's prosperity depended on the coming of the railroad or a canal.  In the 20th century, a city's prosperity depended on the building of highways and airports.  The bigger the airport, the further outside the city it was, until airports were built between cities.  A person arriving by air, didn't need to go into the city proper. 

The coming of the motion picture and neighborhood "picture houses" took people away from the downtown theaters, opera houses and music halls.  When television became a household item, people could see what they wanted (and what they didn't want to see) without leaving their living room. 

The "shopping center" grew up in the 1920s outside the central city.  It took business away from the city center to the suburbs.  The first shopping center, Country Club Plaza (picture on right), was built in 1922 in Kansas City, Missouri.  A Kansas farm boy who went on to Harvard, wrote his thesis on the "economics of land development" and then went to Europe to collect architectural ideas to apply to his shopping center.  The shopping center covered 6,000 acres and was one-tenth of the total area of Kansas City at the time.

By 1940 about one quarter of the nation's retail sales were in suburban shopping centers.  By 1950 the percentage was one-third.  There were 1800 shopping centers built on the outskirts of business districts by 1955. Meanwhile increasing number of people held jobs outside the city center.  Professional centers sprang up for banks, doctors, lawyers and factories.  A smaller proportion of the population worked downtown and had fewer reasons to go "into the city."

There are many factors that contributed to the decline of main street - transportation, infrastructure, shopping centers, and just a growing populations.  What was once a mom and pop street in the heart of the city became almost obsolete in the 21st century.  What a shame!.

Next time...Boom!
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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 29, 1911, Ishi, described as the last surviving member of the Native American Yahi tribe is discovered in California.  Known as the "Stone-Age Indian" he was found lost and starving in Oroville, California.  He was unfamiliar with white ways and spoke no English. He was 50 years old and taken to live in the Berkeley Museum where he was cared for until his death at 56.  He was cremated according to the customs of his people.

Road Trip

Contributing to the decline of Main Street was the automobile.  Highways were built to serve only the automobile.  They were isolated from pedestrians, from the landscape, from businesses.  Those driving those automobiles were also isolated from each other and their city.

Attempts to "beautify" the highway by removing advertiser billboards never worked.  Companies claimed it would create a landscape that caused boredom without billboards and that led to sleepy drivers who caused accidents.  (seriously??) Others claimed it was a distraction that caused accidents - as we see today the billboard won out.

The city center ceased to be the destination for anyone with a car.   A driver could get away from work, get away from home, get away from congestion and basically go anywhere in an automobile.  No longer did people have to go where the railroad went or where the bus went.  They could go where they wanted to go.  Early major cities with waterways like Chicago, St. Louis, Boston and New York couldn't keep citizens from driving to other location with waterways as long as it was somewhere else!

Paving streets and highways diffused the population further.  The first major federal highway act was the Federal Aid Road Act which was originally passed in 1916 to speed up the mail.  These roads were based on Congress' constitutional power to establish "post roads."  The true aim was to build a national network of roads.

In 1925 a uniform system of numbering and marking east-west highways in multiples of 10 was established.  Starting with the Atlantic seaboard post road as US 1, it ran across the nation to the Pacific seaboard as US 101.  A uniform design for marking roads was incorporated.  States  developed their own numbering and marking systems as well.

This national network was a symbol of the many destinations of American automobiles.  The "high road" became the "high way" of importance, taking citizens everywhere and anywhere.

Next time - Up, Up and Away
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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was adopted, giving women the long fought for right to vote.  It took 70 years of struggle by women suffragists to reach the basic right of voting in the United States.

The Birth of Los Angeles

Let's take a moment to take a look at an American city that went through the biggest transformation of the 20th century.  Originally laid out in 1781 by the Spanish governor, the "pueblo" of Los Angeles was a plaza 200 feet wide by 300 feet long with four main streets extended out from the center.

Los Angeles kept its Spanish influence through the 19th century.  There were only as many houses as could be irrigated nearby.  In the 1970s the city began to grow steadily. Until 1920, however, the downtown still dominated the city.  There was still a "main street" which was the center of work by day and an vibrant nightlife. The picture on the right is Sunset Boulevard circa 1900.

Jump ahead 50 years and by 1970, LA had spread out over some 450 square miles.  Seven million people now lived there, making LA the 2nd most populous city in America.  By then there was no dominant downtown. 

Terms like "suburbs in search of a city" have been used to describe Los Angeles.  The city grew so vastly after the invention of the automobile.  The first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, was open on December 30, 1940, and by the 1950s Los Angeles' nightlife was almost a thing of the past.

As freeways multiplied, the center city declined.  In 1953, the Good Fellows Grotto at 341 Main Street closed it's doors and became a symbol of the suburb city.  Good Fellows was a "grill and oyster house" founded in 1905 and the in-place for theater crowds and business lunches. 

The automobile changed urban life across the nation...next time.
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Today in Pioneer History: "On August 22, 1950, Athena Gibson is the first black American player to compete in a U.S. national tennis tournament in Forest Hills, New York. She beat Barbara Knaoo 6-2 and 6-2 in the match but lost in the second round.  Her first major victory came at the French Open in 1956 at the age of 30.