When I was a kid, I lived in a Chicago suburb with a thriving and quaint downtown shopping area. It wasn’t a mall or a strip mall - I mean a real downtown with a train station, neighborhood bank, farmer’s market, city hall and little one-of-a-kind shops that were owned by people who lived in our town.
Although many businesses have come and gone since I was a kid (not THAT long ago!), technology and the Internet has changed the way we do business, plain and simple. Some of the shops that used to dot our neighborhood shopping areas will simply never come back to a brick-and-mortar way of doing business. Others are ‘endangered species’ - ones that with just a little more momentum will be gone in the next few years.
Sometimes the culprit was the convenience or advancement of the Internet. Others, it was the in-store technology of large chain stores that made it easier and cheaper to carry a wider variety of products.
In all cases, business found a cheaper and more efficient way to deliver in-demand products. In the end, it also meant that many small mom-and-pop stores either have had to change with the times or go out of business.
- Record/CD Stores
- 1 Hour Photo Shops
- Video Rental
- Camera Stores
- Neighborhood Bookstores
- Niche Art or Craft Stores
- Travel Agencies
- Neighborhood Grocery Stores
- Neighborhood Movie Theaters
- Independent Pharmacies
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