Why Americans Love Chain Stores: A Psychological Perspective

That's a line from a 1996 paper by famed urban historian Kenneth T. Jackson. It's pitch perfect not just because comparing shopping centers to those other elegant accomplishments is ludicrous, but because the uniformity of shopping centers stands in contrast to the individuality of the American spirit. We defend to the last the right to pursue our own desires, but when it comes time to exercise that right, it turns out most of us desire to pull out of the driveway, head toward the main suburban strip, and turn into Walmart, Target, Home Depot, etc.

So what's the source of this gulf between our individual ideals and our common practice? A group of behavioral scientists, led by Shigehiro Oishi at the University of Virginia, thinks it has to do with residential mobility. Part of American independence has always been the right to pack up and move somewhere more promising. De Tocqueville marveled at the restlessness of the typical American: "he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere." We saw the same thing during the recent boom; in 2006, some 16 percent of Americans moved within the previous year.