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Moving on Out: The Suburbanization of Retail in Lincoln, Nebraska
Brian Sarnacki
History 844
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The suburbanization of twentieth century American cities created a vastly different urban
landscape as households moved increasingly further away from the city center. Formerly the economic
and social heart of the city, the downtown areas stagnated as businesses followed the households to the
city's fringes. The streetcar began this movement to the suburbs, allowing residents to move about a
larger city much faster than on foot. However, more than the streetcar, the rise of the automobile in the
1910s and 1920s facilitated these urban changes more than any other event, granting access to any city
space regardless of location. Automobiles allowed business to relocate in the suburbs with their
workers. Over the course of the twentieth century, retailers in Lincoln gradually vacated the downtown
area as car traffic replaced foot traffic and businesses joined their customers in the suburbs.
More than any other business, department stores embodied the rise and fall of the downtown
retailer. Beginning in the early twentieth century, department stores developed genteel spaces
acceptable for women to shop. Ornately decorated stores and window displays attracted passersby and
turned consumerism into an experience. Local retailers quickly took the lead, erecting large, decorative
buildings in the heart of downtown. In Lincoln, these department stores clustered in the central
business district, staying between 9th and 13th and N and Q streets. Because of these large stores
needed large volumes of sales in a walking city, the ability to attract consumers passing by on the
streets justified the high rents near the central business district. However, as urban transportation
became easier the stores began to push outward. Small commercial pockets developed along main
roads as automobiles allowed the central business district to move outward instead of upwards in
skyscrapers.1 Smaller department stores south on 17th street and in the Havelock neighborhood
appeared. National stores, such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., Montgomery, Ward & Co, and J. C. Penny
entered into competition with local retailers as well. However, local department stores had already
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. Alison Isenberg, Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (University of Chicago
Press, 2004) 101-107; Ernest W. Burgess, "The Growth of the City," in Robert Parks, ed., The City (1925) in Richard T.
Gates and Frederic Stout, eds., The City Reader (London: Routledge, 1996), 90-96.
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secured the prime downtown real estate. Before moving to the suburbs, Sears, Montgomery Ward and
J.C. Penny all moved between different downtown store locations.2
However, the mid-century emergence of the mall drastically changed retailers' landscape. Often
anchored by department stores, malls were vast commercial complexes built in the suburbs meant to
attract new suburban residents. Mall shoppers were often part of the mostly white middle class that had
taken advantage of government programs to move out into the suburbs.3 These shoppers enjoyed the
convenience of malls' locations as well as their modern, more car-friendly design. Malls' easily
accesible parking lots appealed much more to suburban families more so than driving downtown where
the existing built environment made parking harder to find. Both national and local department stores
moved to the suburbs and built new, modern buildings. The city's development often followed the
malls, which attracted investment to the surrounding areas. When the Gateway Shopping Center
opened in Lincoln in 1960, the city's development followed it eastward, over the objections of many
city boosters.4
The city's growth continued to follow retailers to the urban fringes as developers clustered
businesses in certain areas located on major roads. Several "power centers" anchored by national, big
box stores developed in Lincoln as the main transportation pathways attracted commerce. While the
Gateway mall had moved city development East, new clusters of business North of town between
Cornhusker Highway and the I-80 interstate and South arranged around Southpointe mall. One of the
more recent developments, Southpointe Mall distills the suburbanization of the city into a single case
study. Built on the edge of the city, just as developers were turning farmland into suburban
subdivisions, Southpointe self-consciously appealed to the upper middle class residents moving into
2
. Polk City Directories, 1917, 1927, 1937, 1947, 1959. See Figures 1-3 and 7.
. David M. P Feund, “Marketing the Free Market,” in The New Suburban History Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J.
Sugrue eds., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 11-32.
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. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003) 165-17; Polk City Directories, 1972,
1980; Rodd Cayton, “Gateway's Goal to Keep Shoppers Headed East,” Lincoln Journal Star March 6, 2005, section O p.4.
See Figure 8.
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these newly constructed subdivisions. Located in “the most affluent and fastest-growing area of
Lincoln” developers envisioned much of the city's future growth to occur in this southern section of the
city. The mall also selected Von Maur as the anchor store in order to “bring in the upper-end shopper”
who likely lived nearby. Historically the wealthiest citizens sought to live furthest from town in order
to take advantage of cheap land on which they could construct larger, more modern homes. Middle and
upper class residents also sought to move closer to the purity of the country side, while retaining the
comforts of the city, a desire suburban shopping centers met quite well. Retailers already established in
other areas, including Gateway Mall, relocated or opened a new store so as to tap into the market living
in the affluent suburbs.5
This movement to the suburbs, though, ultimately left downtown empty. As the economies of
scale increased in retail, national chains bought out local stores. Lacking the sentimental attachment to
the city's downtown, national chains abandoned the outdated and often high rent spaces in the city's
center for modern suburban developments. By 1990, the Lincoln's city directories listed no department
stores downtown and only national chains. Certainly smaller retailers like used book stores remained
downtown and specialized retailers occupied space in malls and other suburban locations, but the space
department stores required, both on the floor for products and in the parking lot, made the business
model of large retailers in the central business district unfeasible. New buildings on the city's edge
brought cheaper rents, but also new, more modern buildings. With facilities constructed in the early
twentieth century, many local businesses had to leave their downtown locations to compete with other
businesses. DuTeau Chevrolet occupied the same downtown space for nearly three fourths of a decade,
but chose to follow the lead of its competitors, like local Ford and Saturn dealerships, to exurbia.
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. Ed Russo, “Demographics attract interest in SouthPointe” Lincoln Journal Star November 15, 1998 section G, p.
5; Ed Russo, “SouthPointe to unveil anchor store” Lincoln Journal Star May 11, 1997 section E, p. 1; Kara G, Morrison,
“Talbots leaves Gateway for SouthPointe” Lincoln Journal Star April 10, 1999, section A, p. 6; Kara G, Morrison, “Ben
Simon's at SouthPointe to open soon” Lincoln Journal Star June 25, 1999, section A, . 8; Sam Bass Warner, Streetcar
Suburbs (Harvard, 1978) 1-34; Burgess, "The Growth of the City," 90-96; Hayden, 65-70, 156-161, 170-177, 190-191. See
figure 9.
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Though DuTeau built South on 27th and its competitors moved north of town near the I-80 interstate, all
the companies pursued additional, more modern spaces. At some point the self-proclaimed “love for
downtown” was simply not enough to justify “less than optimum conditions” to run a business and
these businesses moved to edge cities.6
Once the center of retail activity, the downtown became largely barren. However, downtown
rejuvenation efforts have begun as Lincoln searches for way to attract people back to the city's center.
While plans focused on different types of consumption, particularly entertainment and dining, new
retail spaces, though not the large department stores of old, are included in plans. These steps are
intended to make the downtown space an attraction because its economic advantages have been
rendered largely moot by the automobile. Suburban shoppers will continue to get their groceries from
large stores located out on 48th and O street and other suburban commercial centers. However, the
farmers market in Lincoln's Haymarket may also attract these same suburbanites to visit downtown and
potentially support businesses in that area.7 The city now needs to entice middle class consumers to
patronize downtown companies. With more modern, often closer suburban and exurban shopping
centers, the middle class can obtain any retail item and enjoy food and entertainment while staying
miles outside of the city's central business district. Attracting citizens downtown also helps fight the
anonymity of the city, which the suburban lifestyle has exacerbated. Instead of encountering people on
the streets, cars allow segmented transportation from one place to another, even if just a short ways. In
many ways the anomie of the city has been expanded by the suburb's “drive to lunch syndrome.”8
The automobile facilitated the move of homes and businesses from the downtown to the
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Polk City Directories, 1990, 2000; Ed Russo, “DuTeau leaving downtown 27th, Pine Lake site will be more
modern, more convenient” Lincoln Journal Star December 6, 1998, section D, p. 1; Hayden, 158-180; Jon Teaford, The
Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post Urban America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006) 192-197; Kenneth
T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) 265271. See figure 6.
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. Nate Jenkins, “Step toward rejuvenating downtown” Lincoln Journal Star section B, p. 1; Algis J. Laukaitis,
“Downtown's many plans, studies will dovetail, officials say” Lincoln Journal Star section N, p. 3.
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. Hayden, 156-157; Louis Wirth, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," in Philip Kasinitz, Metropolis: Center and Symbol
of Our Times (New York: NYU Press, 1995), 58-82. See figure 10.
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suburban fringe over the course of the twentieth century. As large, car-friendly, modern buildings and
complexes became required for businesses to compete with increasingly powerful national chains,
downtown department stores became extinct. As the walking city became the driving city, interior
space trumped window displays and high downtown rents were an obstacle easily remedied with
relocation.
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Appendix
Figure 1.
The approximate locations of department stores listed in the 1917 and 1927 Lincoln City Directories.
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Figure 2.
The approximate locations of department stores listed in the 1937, 1947 and 1959 Lincoln City
Directories.
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Figure 3.
A close up of downtown for the years 1937, 1947 and 1959.
Figure 4.
The approximate locations of department stores listed in the 1972 and 1980 Lincoln City Directories.
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Figure 5.
A close up of downtown for the years 1972 and 1980.
Figure 6.
The approximate locations of department stores listed in the 1990 and 2000 Lincoln City Directories.
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Figure 7.
The Miller and Paine Building, whose ornate exterior and large spaces for window displays were
rendered less important in the age of the automobile.
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Figure 8.
The Gateway Shopping Center location of Miller and Paine. Its architecture was much more simplistic
and modern with little window space, but ample parking for suburbanites who drove to the store.
(http://www.retronaut.co/2011/08/miller-and-paine-department-store-nebraska-1964/)
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Figure 9.
The exurban shopping center located near 56th and Highway 2.
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Figure 10.
56th street. Suburban power centers catered the every need of suburban residents including
entertainment, shopping (Target and Super Saver, unpictured, are off to the right and additional
restaurants, also unpictured, are to the left).