posted on August 31, 2010 07:20
Editor's Note: We're fortunate to have Lori Schuh as our guest blogger this week. Lori is the Main Street Manager for Master Level Main Street Clare. Clare, located in the heart of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, has been a part of the Michigan Main Street program since 2004.
By Lori Schuh
Main Street Manager
Main Street Clare
As any Main Street Manager will attest to, we are very adept at managing and adapting to change. We always have a “Plan B” because we know things change constantly. In my humble opinion, Main Street is about change, or more accurately, managing change. This might seem counter to half of our mission of historic preservation, which some translate to “keep things the way they were”. However, I believe that every Main Street should constantly change, it must to survive.
So it is with Clare Main Street. When our town was built, it served settlers with several blacksmith shops, a bakery, a few banks, and a mortuary that also housed a furniture repair shop, a barber, and a tobacco dealer. We had several boarding houses, a few liveries, and, eventually, a grain elevator. Over the course of time, blacksmith shops were no longer needed, replaced by gas stations on every corner, and the mortuary was probably best placed outside of the downtown due to changing needs. Many other businesses came and went over the course of the years; however, the grain elevator, boarding house (hotel), bakery, and others, have kept their relevance. Other new businesses are here to fill the changing needs of the community, just the way they did when it was first established. If this didn’t happen, our downtown would quickly cease to exist due to a resistance to change.
There are usually very good reasons that things change. For instance, recently we had curb and road work throughout downtown; and in the process gained new traffic lights and pedestrian crossing signs. Some might argue that things were fine the way they were, and that the change wasn’t necessary. The reason the change was made is due, in part, to the fact that the way it was before simply wasn’t working for our downtown any more. To help make things work better, the new process was implemented. There has been much public input, and considerable human resources allocated to analyze this change. Eventually this new pattern will be the norm and future projects will most likely be considered unnecessary.
If you think about it, we spend much time analyzing and discussing change. We write reports to compare something that happened in another time frame against a more recent time frame. I would guess that since time began, this process has been going on. I sometimes reflect about what our distant ancestors thought about the glaciers receding. In my opinion this was a great change, however, I’m fairly certain that the change caused concern for our ancestors! Also, when I recall my childhood, we listened to the radio because we didn’t have a television yet, we hadn’t landed on the moon, computers took up large rooms, and our telephone was a “party” line. I believe that the changes that have happened since then have made a huge difference in our quality of life. Everywhere you look changes are taking place and, more times than not, the changes are better than the way it was previously creating the wonderful, necessary, never-ending circle of change!