Compare Main Street with any Shopping Mall. Almost every shopping mall is dominated by a handful of generic franchises that make any mall interchangeable with any other. Malls have become so predictable dull they are no longer the guaranteed generators of profits and dividends. The strip mall has risen as a cheaper competitor to the enclosed mall, it promotes the consumer to make focused purchases. The focused purchased brings the consumer to a specific destination for a relatively short period of time. The interaction between the consumer, the store and and the community are all keep to a minimum -it makes things logistically easy but it's also even more sterile than the mega-mall.
This is not a new question but do people really need another alienating experience in their lives? Commerce has made it possible to get more and more stuff with less and less human contact. I am afraid that many people are so deprived of human contact that it's scary when offered (sort of like when chickens that are exclusive raised in sealed henhouses and are finally allowed out) . There's a sizable portion of the population that sees other people as too messy and too complicated to get involved with. Henry David Thoreau lamented over those who "live lives of quiet desperation". I can only imagine what he would say about the person who sees the world through a windshield while commuting, a computer screen at work and TV at home.
A viable Main Street remains a place where people meet. As a public space, it's a place where people can speak up and voice their opinions. I was in West Chester PA last weekend, a town with a very vibrant commercial center. The shops and restaurants are almost exclusively family owned businesses. In front of the the County Court House in the center of town were two opposing groups of peaceful protesters. You'll never see this in front of a Wal-Mart -actually Wal-Mart is one of many companies that shun urban locations unless they can surround their stores with a mote of parking spaces so they can keep protesters and any kind of political activity away from the store's entrance
Because of the car dominated suburban lifestyle and change in shopping habits many Main Streets are not what they use to be. The empty store fronts seem to attract the wrong people and shoppers outside the community don't go there because they see it as dirty and dangerous. As tax revenues decrease, the local police have less money do their work and a downward spiral begins.
Focusing on dirty and dangerous is misleading. I grew up outside of New York City in the 60's and 70's. New York was rocked by huge changes caused by the suburban sprawl of Greater New York and middle class flight out of the city. New York was very dirty and dangerous -but it was exciting. One of the reasons why New York has been able to economically revive itself is because it has remained exciting. And though it's a persistent misconception that New York is still dirty and dangerous -in truth it is one of the safest and cleanest cities in American.
A BORING STREET ATTRACTS CRIME - boredom and blight go hand in hand . In my past travels I would always ask "what to do in this town?". Once in some backwater crossroads on the edge of Appalachia I asked that question and was told "nothing much, just fighting, stealing or buying drugs... so what do you want?". He gave me a look -the kind of look a hungry wolf would give a lamb. Lucky for me I was with a friend and shepherded me out of there. Years later I got pretty much the same answer to that question on a demolition project in Newark NJ, again I was in a boring crime ridden neighborhood.
One of the best projects to help preserve a town's commercial district is Ithaca Commons. Two streets were changed into a pedestrian mall and parking around the town was expanded. This set up promoted walking and casual shopping. The average time a shopper stayed in town got longer and the longer a shopper stayed in town the more money they spent. The commons also became a center for open air entertainment, community events and social activities. The extra foot traffic reduced crime and a night life of restaurants, cafes and music venues developed.
In Ithaca off from the center of Ithaca Commons is the start of the Sagan Planetary Walk. It's scale model of the solar system that has you walk through town to get a real feeling of how big outer space really is. It's no surprise either that Pluto can be found right at the entrance of the local science museum. This "free" activity must have returned millions of dollars to the businesses of Ithaca, I know that being the father of two science oriented kids the experience was priceless.In a past posting I wrote about CBGBs. In the 1970's everything from Wall Street to Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan was pretty foreboding. The majority of the blocks were filled with half empty industrial buildings from when New York was a manufacturing city. The first artists and urban pioneers that moved in did it because of the cheap rentals. When those people started to generate enough interest in what they were doing, that it brought other people to see what was happening. The foot traffic totally changed the landscape from a city desert to a financial oasis.
To go back to the days of Imperial Rome - think Bread and Circus. For over 400 years that made Rome a working center of the civilized world and first city of over million people. Bread and Circus should be part of any strategy to revitalize and maintain Main Street. Any activity that gives people a reason to visit is a good one. Family friendly events, political protests, parades, performance art projects -anything that brings people in is a potential opportunity. Once the perception of being boring is broken, the investments will follow. Money always follows enthusiasm and activity.
I also mentioned two local towns, Pottstown and Phoenixville. Both were industrial towns centered around a steel mill. The steel mills in both towns closed and most of the other industries followed. Phoenixville has made the transition into a center of entertainment, art and culture. Pottstown has not.
Phoenixville is visibly more prosperous and safer than Pottstown. Even though Phoenixville is half the size of Pottstown, Phoenixville has almost three times as many businesses. If you were to go to Phoenixville at 7pm you would find about 60% of all the businesses open, in Pottstown more than 60% are closed by 7pm.
Give your hometown a change by giving other people a reason to come in and visit. The suburbs are filled with bored people, they might be a little rusty with their social skills but many of them are looking for something to do.
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