Editing Moline, Illinois (section)

===1940s–1980s===
[[File:Deere & Company World Headquarters.jpg|thumb|Deere & Company World Headquarters in Moline]]
Moline witnessed a continued population increase after World War II with the completion of "Molette", a subdivision of mass-produced starter homes selling for $5,000 each. Molette was the first Moline neighborhood produced on a mass scale and one of the largest single-unit housing projects in the Midwest at the time.<ref>Tweet, p. 62.</ref> Near Molette on 41st Street, the Defense Department funded an $800,000 housing project known as Springbrook Courts, which served as housing for Rock Island Arsenal employees before being converted into a non-military-affiliated public housing project managed by the Moline Housing Authority.<ref>"Moline's $886,000 Defense Housing Project from the Air", ''The Daily Dispatch'', Moline, Illinois, Nov. 20, 1941.</ref> It was in this time that one of the major factors shaping the modern layout of Moline first came into play—the rough topography of the inland bluffs. As Moline grew, the traditional rectilinear grid of the downtown area gave way to smaller subdivisions containing cul-de-sacs, curvilinear roadways, and courts. As a comprehensive plan of Moline later stated, "the topography has had a decided influence upon the growth and development of the city . . . the city is literally interlaced with fingers of wooded ravines draining surface water to the north into the Mississippi and to the south into the creeks and drainage ditches tributary to the Rock River. This condition has greatly influenced the building of underground utilities, the location of thoroughfares, the selection of sites for schools and parks, the design and development of residential areas, and the location of business and industrial areas. The customary 'grid' type subdivision planning so common to most Midwestern cities is impractical of adaptation when looking at a map of the present city. Some streets . . . have been dedicated but never improved because of the topography and the excessive cost of construction."<ref>''A Comprehensive Plan for the City of Moline, Illinois, and its Environs'', Moline Planning Commission, City of Moline: Moline, Illinois, March 1958.</ref>

The layout of the city was significantly improved by the approval of the city's first zoning ordinance and the creation of a Zoning Board in 1929. Moline became the first Illinois city outside the Chicago area to adopt this tool of urban planning. The zoning board, in its preliminary report, released the following statement: "Generally speaking, [the new zoning ordinance] will tend to promote public health, safety, comfort, morals, and welfare. Specifically, it is designed to lessen congestion in streets and to avoid future congestion; to secure safety from fire and other hazards; to provide light and air about buildings in which people live; to prevent overcrowding of land and avoid excessive concentration of population; to assist in adequately providing transportation, water supply, sewage disposal, schools, parks, and other public requirements.<ref>Moline Zoning Commission Final Report, Moline, Illinois, June 17, 1929.</ref>

Although the city did not suffer during the 1950s and 1960s, those decades marked a departure from the city's earlier trajectory of unceasing upward growth. The zoning ordinance drawn up in 1929 predicted a population of 70,000–80,000 for Moline in 1980, but Moline actually only attained 45,000 by that year.<ref>Moline Zoning Commission Final Report, p. 8.</ref> The primary problem for Moline, and the Quad-Cities at large, in this period was the area's lack of a strong national identity. The Moline Association of Commerce marketed the Quad-Cities under the motto of "Joined together, as the boroughs of New York City" throughout the 1940s and 1950s, with Moline as the "nucleus", but few corporations bought into the analogy. Despite the Quad-Cities' status as "the largest metropolitan area between Chicago, Omaha, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Kansas City", the area remained relatively unheard of.<ref>"Moline, Illinois, presents the metropolitan Quad-Cities", Moline Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 1969, Promotional booklet.</ref> Existing companies, including John Deere, [[Alcoa]], [[Caterpillar Inc.|Caterpillar]], [[Case IH|Case]], and [[Case IH|International Harvester]] all continued to grow and expand operations in the area, but no real diversification of local industry occurred; Moline remained steadfastly dependent on the farm implement industry for its economic solvency, a dependency that later proved disastrous.

In 1989, a region-wide comprehensive plan called "Quad-City Visions for the Future" summed up the area's problems well. "Growth has been so that the Quad-Cities population is split almost equally between the two states. This is an unusual growth pattern on major rivers that form state boundaries ... . Further complicating the economic and political arenas is the fact that there are five contiguous cities in the Iowa Quad-Cities and eight in the Illinois Quad-Cities. Quad-Cities fragmentation historically has been raised as a major community liability by many different groups and individuals . . . . It is difficult for outsiders to appreciate the opportunities available here; growth and development are more difficult because of the differences in regulations; the distribution of grant money from state and federal governments has not always been efficient or effective; governmental services are more costly when administered by many entities separately."<ref>"Quad-Cities USA – Visions for the Future: Strategic Plan and Implementation", Jan. 31, 1989.</ref>

As a result of the gradual dissolution of the trends of industrial expansion and the end of the age of immigration, Moline's population stagnated throughout the mid-to-late-20th century, settling in the 40,000–45,000 range, where it remains today. The central retail district gradually closed down as the area's first shopping malls opened in the early 1970s, pulling business away from downtown. This southward trend in retail occurred despite the extension of [[Interstate 74]] through the city and across the river on the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge in 1974, an infrastructure improvement that made Moline's downtown more accessible and brought thousands of commuters and travelers through Moline each day. Though most civic leaders and journalists had been optimistic-–one reporter claimed "almost every indicator of economic, population, and civic growth points to the fact that Moline's potential for growth is greater than ever . . . especially in its now readily accessible downtown . . ." – there was no stopping the dawn of the age of strip retailing.<ref>Doug Anderson, "Downtown key to development of Moline growth",  ''The Daily Dispatch'', Moline, Illinois, July 21, 1969.</ref>

Perhaps the greatest problem befalling Moline in the second half of the 20th century was the farm crisis of the 1980s. Moline's economic vitality was sapped as the agricultural crisis crippled the farm implement industry, the force which had shaped the development of Moline since the city's earliest days. Plant after plant laid off workers by the thousands, and unemployment in the area soared to twice the national average. Even Deere & Company moved most of its factory operations out of Moline, though it maintained its [[John Deere World Headquarters|world headquarters]] in Moline in a specially commissioned building that was designed by [[Eero Saarinen]]. The LeClaire Hotel, the tallest building in Moline and a longtime symbol of the city's wealth and prestige, closed its doors. The 1990 census showed a population loss for the city for the second straight decade.