Can Main Street Save Our Downtown?

Back in the first half of the 20th century, when you heard the words “Main Street,” it conjured up visions of a bustling downtown with shops, banks, restaurants, and often a movie theater or two; in other words, the hub of Anytown, USA.

Things began to change in the early 1960s. Demands for housing became critical, thanks to a flourishing middle class. Cheap land with easily available low-interest mortgages led to the building of tract housing far outside the town center. The exodus to these new suburbs was quickly followed by large malls housing department stores and smaller specialty shops. Before long, merchants were deserting the convenience of downtowns for these malls which were like small towns in themselves.

With shoppers gone, public transportation fell off and by the mid-1980s retail outlets had abandoned the core of all but the largest U.S. cities. The public, happy with their new climate-controlled shopping centers, seemed indifferent to the fate of their deteriorating downtowns.

Read the entire article in the March 2009 issue