Excerpts from Preservation Publications
The National Main Street Program was implemented in 1980 in an effort to revitalize downtowns across America. The program is designed to improve downtown business districts. Improving economic management, strengthening public participation, and making downtown a fun place are as critical to Main Street’s future as recruiting new business, restoring buildings and expanding parking. The focus is the core of the community’s heart – the commercial downtown. The program has built stronger communities and encouraged thriving public-private partnerships.
The traditional downtown commercial districts lost their business core with adoption of the 1956 Highway Act, which created the interstate system we know today. Prior to the interstate system, most of the money consumers spent on retail goods remained within a 15 mile radius of the nearest town. The new highway system prompted development of shopping centers along interstates; gas stations and motels moved to the interstates away from the town centers. The landscape was redesigned for the needs of the automobile.
Then, bypasses were approved across America to “improve” traffic flow. How many small downtowns have dried up over those improvements?
Small towns made efforts to regain the lost consumer base. Commercial buildings were torn down to create parking lots. Buildings were covered with metal slipcovers to mimic the strip malls to which consumers were flocking.
Current Main Street theory: A city must work on all aspects of downtown revitalization, preferably simultaneously. We must protect the buildings. We must promote the downtown, sponsor events, build a strong downtown business organization, recruit new businesses while strengthening existing ones, and both plan and execute economic restructuring.
The Texas Historic Commission says that cities must maintain support for youth, to be user friendly for young people. You don’t have vandalism. You have young people with identification for the town. The youth act to protect the town; they want to return to the town to raise their own families.
(Fact: the City of Ruston, Louisiana – when Ruston joined the Main Street program in 1989 – it had 22 vacant storefronts and no downtown restaurant; after 5 years in the program it had no vacant storefronts and 5 new restaurants. See www.prcno.org. March 2008; p. 9, Preservation in Print – article on Louisiana Main Street programs.)
