1.5: Commercial Suburbia

Basic to the American suburbs is the fact that suburbia is the preeminent zone for business in the United States. As far back as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries', industries were already moving to the suburbs and during the thirty years following World War II retailing migrated outward, creating the landscape of parking lots and malls familiar to all. Finally, during the last quarter of the twentieth century, a mass migration of office space confirmed the commercial supremacy of the suburbs. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, the heart of American business was in the suburbs. The suburbs contained the majority of American manufacturing, retailing, and office space. In the suburbs and smaller outlying bedroom communities surrounding large cities was where most individuals earned and spent most of their cash.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, there have been no signs of a shift away from this preeminence. Scholars and journalists argue about the exact pattern of suburban business, retailers and developers attempt to discover and satisfy the shopping and spending desires of suburban consumers, and local government officials seek to maximize their tax revenues from the abundance of commercial activity. All of them recognize that the business future of the nation is in the suburbs. That is where the money is (Degross, 2003).

Changes in shopping patterns

One could argue that there is no sector of American business possessing a stronger identification with suburbia than retailing. With the declines of the great downtown department stores during the second half of the twentieth century, suburbia has emerged as the preeminent place to shop. It is the mother lode of modern consumerism, the destination of shoppers seeking to satisfy their passion for spending.

Power center

During the last decades of the twentieth Century, the inescapable symbol of suburban shopping was the mall. Yet the opening of the Mall of America with over 520 units in 1992 did not mark the beginning of a new golden mall age. The Mall of America actually marked the ‘end’ of the nation's love affair with the enclosed suburban shopping center to some extent as the hands of the category killers, the big box stores such as Walmart and Target.

Thus, the 'power center' emerged as the next generation shopping location. The International Council of Shopping Centers defines a power center as " a center dominated by several large anchors, including discount department stores, off-price stores, warehouse clubs, or category killers. With "only a minimum amount of small specialty tenants" (ICSC, 2006). These stores built to attract bargain hunters are among the most formidable rivals for the enclosed mall. At a power center, the shopper can find more for less, taking advantage of the prices and inventory offered by the hulking giants of twenty-first-century retailing.

Lifestyle center

Further undermining the enclosed mall is the "lifestyle center." During the first decade of the twenty-first century, these open-air centers of upscale chain specialty stores with an ample supply of restaurants and entertainment venues became the latest rage in retailing and a new feature of the nation's suburbs.

Basic to the lifestyle concept is the creation of a pleasurable ambience of well-designed and tastefully landscaped outdoor plazas and walkways. The centers are intended to be reminiscent of the small town main streets of yesterday, but with such upscale retailers as ‘Ann Taylor’, ‘Banana Republic’, and ‘Pottery Barn’ never found in those small towns. Additionally, they have plenty of parking thus correcting a flaw that destroyed main street retailing in years past. The concept is a modernized version of the traditional marketplace. It is a return to the character and the ambience of small towns with enhanced offerings that include ‘in-demand retailers’, ‘restaurants’, ‘entertainment’, and services for a ‘complete shopping experience’.

Town center

A variant of the lifestyle center is the town center. Like their lifestyle cousins, town centers are open air with attractive public spaces and a main street ambience. They are mix-use centers including not only retailing and entertainment, but also office, housing, and public facilities such as libraries. Their intention is to be 24-hour venues, places where people live, work, and play that will recreate the liveliest urban streets. The mix-use town center brings together everything people want in one attractive place, often generating two or three times the draw of a traditional shopping center. Many people are hungry for homes in a true town center that allows them to walk to stores, restaurants, entertainment, even work (Lockwood, 2003).

In any case, suburban retailing is continually reinventing itself. It is not dependent on the fortunes of the traditional enclosed mall. Instead, suburbs throughout the nation are breeding grounds for the shopping options of tomorrow (Field, 2006). Further, suburban governments welcome this form of financial growth. Local officials have repeatedly expressed their preference for commerce over residential developments. Commercial developments tend to produce jobs, revenue for the city, and all of this occurs with minimal impact regarding community services need to generate revenue.

It is with a certain amount of irony that peripheral areas originally conceived as residential retreats of wholesome family life have developed into the domain of American commerce. They have sprouted edge cities, diffused into edgeless cities, and spawned a succession of enclosed malls, power centers, and lifestyle venues. By the early twenty-first century, many of these former bastions of the American family and home wanted nothing more than to be rid of child-producing families and housing subdivisions sucking cash from local treasuries. Changing patterns of work, shopping, and leisure, as well as the fiscal realities of American local government, have made a mockery suburban stereotypes. American suburbia of the early twenty-first century is not a haven or retreat. It is where Americans earn and spend as well as sleep. It is the primary focus on the majorities' way of life.