DC's Main Street program is in trouble

From the very beginning of the launch in 2002, traditional development types haven't been big on DC's Main Street program, being that it focuses on historic preservation, civic engagement, and ground-up agenda development. Community Development Corporations, the leading neighborhood economic development forces during the Barry years, have never warmed to the concept. They have often painted the Main Street program and historic preservation as a program for "new residents" read "white."

Even in DC, preservation isn't only a white thing. Theresa Brown, who led the creation of the LeDroit Park Historic District is well-known nationally for her efforts. And the Anacostia Historic District preservation effort was not led by white people either. But there is no question that the Main Street movement represents a fundamentally different philosophy from the urban renewal focus of DC's Department of Housing and Community Development and the relatively independent CDCs, who especially don't like to be challenged.

So with new people in place in the Executive Branch, and the same for the City Council Committee tasked with oversight of this program ("small business") things don't look too good.

Business as usual is back in fashion. (Say what you will about Mayor Williams, because of his CFO background, he understood the problems posed by CDCs. But he never really attempted to deal with the problem significantly, other than creating a program of "minnows"--Main Street programs--to work to counter the by comparison better funded and better connected CDCs.)

So this piece from the Philadelphia Inquirer, about the success of Main Street programs in their region, "Main Street makeover: Downtowns flourish again as restaurant, boutique or entertainment destinations," is pretty interesting. From the article:

A few years ago, small-town business districts across the region were struggling as customers flocked to malls and big-box stores. The number of storefront vacancies increased; the variety of shops diminished. Then, Main Street fought back.

From Haddonfield and Collingswood in South Jersey to West Chester and Phoenixville in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania suburbs, towns played up their historic charm - and found new niches as restaurant, boutique or arts-and-entertainment destinations.

They hired retail coordinators and Main Street managers to recruit and market retailers. And they started business-improvement districts to pay for advertising, public art, street cleaning and research on new economic-development strategies.

The result? Empty stores were filled with unique businesses, sidewalk cafes blossomed, buildings were constructed, and entertainment was offered, including carriage rides, outdoor concerts and historic-house tours.

"A number of towns have reinvented themselves and made a major comeback from the doldrums when malls emerged victorious in the regional retailing war," said James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

Although this article makes very clear the difference between the programs in Pennsylvania and DC.

One big problem has been a lack of adequate funding. Most neighborhood commercial districts in the city have suffered decades (at least 35 years) of disinvestment. Then all of a sudden, some volunteers, with limited funds and one paid staff member, are supposed to fix things overnight?

Another problem has been inadequate technical assistance capacity on the part of the DC overseers of the program, especially for the number of programs.

And there has been a failure in many ways to provide additional support. Plus there have been massive failures on the community side, where many of the programs focused on the money available from the city, and not understanding and implementing the Approach.

And focus. Already DC has a new revitalization program, "Great Streets," with a relatively dedicated funding source and much more money compared to Main Street. (Although they bit off far more than they can chew given the relatively distressed nature of most of the Great Streets Districts.)

Plus/2, DC is a hard place to raise funds for community efforts. Most of the institutions are nonprofits, and not inclined to fund other nonprofits. The for-profit industries are based upon development, and aren't inclined to fund programs that they see as potentially competitive or problematic. And there are are relatively small number of funders, so having 10-12 Main Street programs all coming around seeking money made things seem somewhat cacaphonous and disorganized.

We'll see what happens over the course of the next few months and the next year.

Also see this column by Neal Peirce, which discusses how the Main Street program is a multiyear process, "Main Street Niches in a Mass Sales World" from 2004 as well as this blog entry, "Yesterday's testimony on the DC Main Streets program."

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization