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When all has been said, however, the big branch store remains a major break with history in the development of American retailing.

Just as the suburban factory may be more convenient than the downtown plant to the worker with a car, the trip to the shopping center may seem far easier than to the downtown department store, though both are the same distance from home.

Indeed, there are some cities where the suburban shopping pulls customers who are geographically much nearer to downtown.

Raymond Vernon reports that residents of East St. Louis have been driving across the Mississippi, through the heart of downtown St. Louis and out to the western suburbs for major shopping, simply because parking is easier at the big branches than it is in the heart of town.

To the extent that the problem is merely parking, an aggressive downtown management, like that of Lazarus Brothers in Columbus, Ohio, can fight back successfully by building a garage on the lot next door.

If the distant patron of the suburban branch has been frightened away from downtown by traffic problems, however, the city store can only pressure the politicians to do something about the highways or await the completion of the federal highway program.

And if the affection for the suburban branch reflects a desire to shop with `` nice people '', rather than with the indiscriminate urban mass which supports the downtown department store, the central location may be in serious trouble.

Today, according to land economist Homer Hoyt, shopping centers and their associated parking lots cover some 46,000 acres of land, which is almost exactly the total land area in all the nation's Central Business Districts put together.