Record Stores, Used Bookstores, Cat Cafes, Camera Shops, Computer Stores, A weirdly cheap brunch place that is also a gay(?) karaoke bar, Thrift and Consignment Shops, A doo woop shop, Salons, shops that sell boba tea
These are things you can find on a vibrant commercial corridor in a midsized American city
But something tragic happened to these places, many of them no longer exist! They died in the 70s alongside the urban cores of the city's they inhabited, never getting the chance to be graced by boba tea and cat cafes. This had many causes but the main ones were of course the cause of many of the problems in America, Suburbanisation.
You see with the Rising popularity of the automobile and the growing distance from city centers there was less of a need foe stores to exist in neighborhoods so the ones that remained in urban neighborhoods quickly fell on hard times as a declining customer base started moving out to suburban big box chain stores that were better suited to serve suburbanites because why would you drive into the city to get a new dress when you could go to that new mall just 3 exits down the interstate
