Shopping habits in the United States have changed greatly in the last quarter of the 20th century. Early in the 1900s most American towns and cities had a Main Street. Main Street was always in the heart of a town. This street was16on both sides with many various businesses. Here, shoppers walked into stores to look at all sorts of merchandise：clothing, furniture, hardware, groceries.17, some shops offered18. These shops included drugstores, restaurants, shoe repair stores, and barber or hairdressing shops.19in the 1950s, a change began to20. Too many automobiles had crowded into Main Street21too few parking places were22shoppers. Because the streets were crowded，merchants began to look with interest at the open spaces23the city limits. Open space is what their car driving customers needed. And open space is what they got when the first shopping center was built. Shopping centers, or rather malls,24as a collection of small new stores25crowded city centers. Attracted by hundreds of free parking space, customers were drawn away from26areas to outlying malls. And the growing27of shopping centers led28to the building of bigger and better stocked stores.29the late 1970s, many shopping malls had almost developed into small cities themselves. In addition to providing the convenience of one stop shopping, malls were transformed into landscaped parks,30benches, fountains, and outdoor entertainment. 

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