A concluding chapter looks at the influence of both the drive-in and the supermarket on the neighborhood shopping center, the drug store, and the variety store. This book's great strength is conveying the pragmatic views of big and small businessmen about selling to customers who arrive in a car. Largely absent are first-person accounts from independent store owners displaced by chains or new supermarkets, sales clerks displaced by self service, or any customers who might have preferred pedestrian or streetcar access. In an era when chains drove out independent filling stations and grocers, and then supermarkets drove out chains, a lot of the economic and social action is off stage. This meticulous documentation of the emergence of the automotive retail landscape of Los Angeles tells the physical story of development without much urban planning.
Sprawl starts here.
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