Shopping habits in the United States have changed greatly in the last quarter of the 20th century.1in the 1900s most American towns and cities had a Main Street. Main Street was always in the heart of a town. This street was2on both sides with many3businesses. Here, shoppers walked into stores to look at all sorts of merchandise: clothing, furniture, hardware, groceries.4, some shops offered5.These shops included drugstores, restaurants, shoe-repair stores, and barber or hairdressing shops.6in the 1950s, a change began to7.Too many automobiles had crowded into Main Street8too few parking places were9shoppers. Because the streets were crowded, merchants began to look withinterest at the open spaces10the city limits. Open space is what their car-driving customers needed. And open space is what they got11the first shopping centre was built. Shopping centers, or rather malls,12as a collection of small new stores13crowded city centers.14by hundreds of free parking space, customers were drawn away from15areas to outlying malls. And the growingpopularity of shopping centers ledin turn to the building of bigger and better-stocked stores.By the late 1970s, many shopping malls had almost developed into small cities themselves. In addition to providing theconvenience of one-stop shopping, malls were transformed into landscaped parks,with benches, fountains, and outdoor entertainment.