OP mentioned a "no-name midwestern suburb" - in places like that, the main shopping street in the town often never existed in the first place. The land use goes

OP mentioned a "no-name midwestern suburb" - in places like that, the main shopping street in the town often never existed in the first place. The land use goes straight from farms or ranch land to massive suburban housing developments with no functional town having ever existed in between. Thats not how all of the US works thankfully, but in huge parts of the country which are still doing the suburban sprawl thing, its a pretty common pattern. The nearest city which existed before the 1950s might be an hour's drive away, everything is new and purpose-built by large scale commercial developers.