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That's a trend which has been emerging for a long time. Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945) is an early take, this is a theme of John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley (1962), though Steinbeck was taking pains to avoid the then-brand-new Interstate Highway System. Two decades later, Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways chronicles a similar trip. Growth of both suburbs (Levittown, 1947, Interstate Highway System (1956), shopping mall (1950s/60s), and fast food franchises (McDonalds, bought out by Ray Kroc in 1961, Kentucky Fried Chicken, now KFC, 1952), greatly accelerated the trend especially in the 1960s and 1970s, aided by mass-market television advertising. Homogenisation of US culture, shopping mall / strip mall / franchise culture were all pretty well developed by the 1980s / early 1990s. The specific franchises have been changing (Starbucks does date to the early 1970s, but really boomed during the 1990s, Target is similar, most of your other examples are post-2010). I recall complaints of travelling, often well outside the US, only to be faced with the same mix of stores, restaurants, brands, and products one would find within a typical US city or suburb, already by the 1990s. I'm not saying that this isn't bad. Just that it's been going on for a long time. |