Trust Me. Your Community is NOT “Beyond Main Street”

By Joe Borgstrom, Director
Specialized Technical Assistance
& Revitalization Strategy
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

I have a burr in my saddle. I’m not angry with any of our communities. In fact, we are extremely happy to welcome seven new communities into our Associate Level and to move two communities from our Associate Level to our much more intense Selected Level. We’re thrilled to now serve 22 Associate, 11 Selected and 4 Master Level communities.

My ire is directed at the handful of downtown and community development officials we’ve had conversations with over the past few weeks when talking about the Michigan Main Street program. More specifically, those people, who despite the claims of how much good they think we (and the Main Street philosophy) do for communities, think their own community is “beyond Main Street.” Oh, really?

I’m not exactly sure what it means to be “beyond Main Street.” If they don’t like our program, I can handle that. We can’t be everything to everyone. But the Main Street philosophy? When we talk about Main Street, we talk about the National Main Street Center’s Four-Point Approach® and its eight guiding principles. We use words like “comprehensive,” “inclusive,” “sustainability,” and “accountability.” Saying your community is beyond Main Street is like saying:

“Our community is beyond inclusion.”

“Our community is beyond sustainability.”

“Our community is beyond being accountable.”

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet, it’s what we hear when communities tell us they’re “beyond Main Street.” Considering world renown cities like Boston, Washington DC and Baltimore all have active and award winning Main Street programs, the comment becomes even more ridiculous.

It’s been my experience that what bothers the people who condescendingly describe themselves “real professionals” about Main Street is the fact its volunteer driven.

Here’s why: There are a decent number of downtown and community development directors who get paid pretty well. Good for them. There’s a lot who don’t. Those of us who work in this field know that whatever a Main Street or downtown development manager make, its usually not enough for the 60+ hours a week most work. What we see happen though in those communities whose managers or directors make more money, is they see that as a signal that they have to be the person who does everything. They set an expectation of themselves that they must do all of the work. After all, they are the professional staff, right? They can’t prove how valuable they are if they don’t always run the show, right? That may work for a while, but it certainly isn’t sustainable. What happens when that professional leaves? That one person is the only one who knows where everything is and how it all works. We’ve seen too many communities’ downtown redevelopment efforts stall because they relied so much on one staff person to do all the work.

A community’s downtown is too important to leave to one person.

That’s not to say professional staff aren’t important. They are extremely important. An effective manager or director should be able to coordinate and “herd cats,” but not do all the work. If a community’s efforts are focused solely with a manager or director, when that manager leaves, everything has to start again. Unless…

(You guessed it.) ...they’re practicing Main Street! You see, one of the fundamental parts of Main Street is that it incorporates multiple people doing the work as well as work plans. Work plans, in essence, describe who is going to do what by when and how much it’s going to cost. Accountability, sustainability and documentation by putting it in writing who is going to do what. No guess work. Work is multiplied by adding and listening to volunteers. The average amount of time volunteers in communities in the Selected & Master Levels of the Michigan Main Street program donate is more than 3,000 hours per year. That’s one and half additional staff! What downtown couldn’t use that?

Is your community “beyond” adding staff to get work done? Is it beyond accountability and sustainability? I would hope not.