“Retail Suburbanization: How Omaha’s Clothiers Were Affected by Automobile Parking, Urban Renewal and Population Shifts, 1941-1980”

In the 1950s, clothiers in major U.S. cities worked to provide parking to compete with newly constructed auto-centric shopping malls. This dissertation researched the spatial movement of Omaha clothing stores, department stores, and discount stores between 1941 and 1980, as they abandoned historic business districts for the suburban shopping centers. This study examined Omaha’s retail spatial history, specifically how [1] clothiers, off-street parking operators, and the City of Omaha addressed the need for automobile parking, [2] urban redevelopment changed Retail District land use availability for clothiers, and [3] post-World War II population relocation encouraged suburban clothier growth.

This dissertation used newspaper content analysis, land use analysis, mean centers, and multivariate clustering to examine the effect of new construction on changing historic areas. First, a quantitative analysis of Omaha World-Herald newspaper articles, opinion pieces, and advertisements was completed from 1946-1975, to determine the effects the automobile had on the movement of clothiers from business districts to the suburbs, using the keyword “parking”. The second section used the Omaha City Directories’ Street Directory to analyze changing first-floor Retail District parcel land use between 1941 and 1980. The third study used U.S. Census Bureau block level housing demographics and Omaha City Directory published clothiers to create a spatial movement timeline based on mean centers, while census, clothier, transportation, and Home Owners’ Loan Corporation data used multivariate clustering to create retail zones.

Analyses found that historic Omaha neighborhoods and business districts lost clothiers as white householders flocked to suburban shopping centers in the 1960s. New west Omaha housing construction during the 1950s and 1960s left east Omaha with high density, low owner-occupancy, low percentage of white householders, and low median home values. Clothiers started leaving the Retail District in 1962 and Omaha World-Herald parking segments plateaued in 1963. The opening of Westroads Mall’s (1967-1968) has been blamed for decreasing shopping traffic, but geodemographic, land use, and content analyses found a Retail District location unsustainable for clothiers after the Crossroads Mall was completed in 1960.