Grand Rapids, Michigan

==== Move to retail and suburbanization ====
[[File:Grand Rapids Monroe Center 1965.jpg|thumb|Monroe Center in January 1965, with [[Sears]], [[S. S. Kresge Company]], [[Steketee's]] and Wurzburg's visible]]

Shifting from its furniture-centric industry, downtown Grand Rapids temporarily became a retail destination for the region, hosting four department stores: Herpolsheimer's ([[Lazarus (department store)|Lazarus]]), [[Jacobson's]], [[Steketee's]] (founded in 1862), and Wurzburg's. In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the United States to add [[fluoridation|fluoride]] to its drinking water. National home furnishing conferences were held in Grand Rapids for about seventy-five years, concluding in the 1960s. By that time, the furniture-making industry had largely shifted to [[North Carolina]].<ref>{{cite web |title = North Carolina, the Furniture Capital of the World |url = http://www.visitnc.com/story/north-carolina-the-furniture-capital-of-the-world |website = Visit NC |access-date = August 16, 2014 |archive-date = July 30, 2014 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140730180918/https://www.visitnc.com/story/north-carolina-the-furniture-capital-of-the-world |url-status = live }}</ref>

As with many older cities in the United States, retail in the city suffered as the population moved to suburbs in the postwar era with federal subsidization of highway construction. The Grand Rapids suburb [[Wyoming, Michigan|Wyoming]] began to develop rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s following the opening of retail outlets such as [[Rogers Plaza]] and Wyoming Village Mall on [[M-11 (Michigan highway)|28th Street]], with developments built so quickly that they were finished without utilities.<ref name="CVDS77">{{cite book |last1 = Vaughn |first1 = Charles |title = The City of Wyoming: A History |last2 = Simon |first2 = Dorothy |date = 1984 |publisher = Four Corners Press |location = Franklin, Michigan |pages = 77–112 }}</ref> Consolidation of department stores occurred in Grand Rapids and nationally in the 1980s and 1990s.