As James Flink points out in The Automobile Age, the village store and local banks were the businesses most vulnerable to the new competition (47). Robert E. Wood, former vice president of Sears, explains how businesses moved to the suburbs: “When the automobile reached the mainstream, it changed that condition [the channeling of consumers to the inner city]. and made shopping mobile. In big cities Sears located its stores well outside the main shopping districts, on cheap land, usually on arterial highways, with ample parking space (Wollen 13). to be considered sites of congestion, while the surrounding areas were considered accessible and convenient The rapid proliferation of shopping complexes outside the city center in the 1950s left the city center a wasteland of vacant, blighted stores. by crime. City centers no longer contained traditional stores; instead, they contained gas stations, parking lots, and hostels whose focus was on travelers and their cars (Wollen La 13). Car culture had caused serious headaches for city planners in the 1950s. They had not anticipated the increase in traffic when building cities and were forced to adjust their plans with mixed results. The restructuring of the city has had many side effects, and most of them have not been good for the city center. Businesses and customers were no longer funneled into the now-crowded city center in favor of the more spacious and convenient outskirts. Community life and downtown business have really suffered from automobile-driven suburbanization. Jane Jacobs says in her chapter titled "The Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Automobiles" in the book Autopia, "Today, everyone who values ​​cities is bothered by automobiles (259...... middle paper......freedom to explore America's new highways Although the car offered many advantages, the city had many disadvantages As the suburbs took over the middle class, the city tried to s. Adapting to the millions of new cars on the road, streets were widened, sidewalks narrowed, and the city center became crowded, congested, and perceived as unclean. The downsides of car culture did nothing to lessen the influence. massive influence it had on the popular culture of the time the emerging car culture of the 1950s because of their shared attitudes of freedom, easy fun and living in the fast lane The car culture of the 1950s had a. impacting every aspect of Americans' lives, including the media they consume. the places they live, the music they listen to and of course, the cars they drive.