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

Editor's Note: This week I have been privileged enough be involved in a conversation (via Facebook group) with a writer from Planning Commissioner’s Journal about how planning and zoning officials can aid in a community’s Main Street efforts. The following is an enhanced version of my response. I have linked to appropriate examples to help further illustrate my points. Click on the above Facebook group link to see the whole conversation.

Believe it or not, a number of communities’ zoning ordinances do not allow upper floor housing. Getting people living back downtown is a critical factor for a number of reasons. Here are the two biggest: 1) It significantly increases foot traffic and demand for goods and services downtown- thus making a bigger case for existing businesses to expand or to attract new ones. 2) By allowing the upper floors to generate new income, it lessens the need for the first floor commercial space to carry the full load of the mortgage payments for the building owner. Allowing upper floor income via housing significantly increases the cash flow an owner can use to make further improvements to their property and/or be able to be more flexible with potential commercial tenants. Some states (like Michigan) even have grants to help building owners renovate these upper floors into residential.

Communities should take steps to allow appropriate zoning for outdoor restaurant seating. This has two major benefits: allows a restaurant additional seating which translates directly into more $$$ which makes it more profitable (and desirable) to have an establishment downtown; and it increases the vibrant appearance of the downtown. The old adage goes, “Nothing attracts people like people.” People seeing other people enjoying outdoor dining makes them want to do the same.

Communities should include transportation considerations (traffic flow, volume, etc.) in their downtown’s plan, but it should not dictate it. Transportation experts are great at making sure people get from point A to point B in as little time and effort as possible. However, when it comes to downtowns, HOW they get from point A to point B can often make the difference between increased sales for merchants and making downtown a race track. Context sensitive designs can go a long way.

Another big thing planning and zoning officials can do to assist their Main Street’s efforts, in my opinion, is to throw out Euclidean-based zoning and establish Form-based codes. (The City of Miami's (FL) Miami21 project does a great job of comparing the two styles. Click here to see more.) In Michigan, our communities’ default thinking on infill or new construction is whether or not its use meets the B-1, B-2, or B-3 zoning. We don’t think about how the building fits in the surrounding built environment, whether or not its to scale with people (more often its to fit cars), if it makes use of a historic property or if its intent is mixed-use or not. This is the trap of Euclidean-based zoning. Form-based codes take all of these things into account and more.

I almost forgot the most important thing of all planning/zoning can do to help Main Street efforts: Get your downtown district on the National Register! This unlocks 20% federal tax credits (and newly minted additional 20% for Michigan credits) on properly done rehab projects on historic properties. This is a HUGE incentive for potential developers.

There are a multitude of ways planning & zoning officials can assist Main Street efforts. Always look to find common ground and achieve common goals. This makes everyone look good and, most importantly, does right by our communities!

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Jodie Willobee
Promotion, Arts and Culture
Michigan Main Street
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

After attending the National Main Street Conference last week in Chicago and getting daily swift jabs to the ribs from “Social” on the left and “Media” on the right, you will not here me disagree with not only their importance but the potential effectiveness. I get it (dodge-weave), I GET IT! If I were born after, say 1980, I would have shown up to the conference wearing the Blogger-Orange and Twitter-Blue shorts. Alas, I’m apparently getting on in years as I was agreeing with the kind gray-haired woman next to me during the “Gen Y” session that it did seem like the two, young 20-something presenters were talking a bit fast.

Nonetheless, if there is one thing I have learned quickly about Main Streeters is that you know how to talk about your downtowns. And for that reason I’m here to say, not only CAN you blog, but you SHOULD blog. And not only that…there is no reason you can’t be a huge hit doing it.

Another great thing about a blog for you Main Street is that it doesn’t need to be posts only from you. I highly encourage you to regularly invite your board members to post something and include local business owners in that mix as well. Why not let a local high school student post something compelling about the downtown or their take on an upcoming festival? The great part about letting others on your blog is that you will continually increase your “followers”, drive more traffic to your website and ultimately, your downtown.

As for Twittering, it is my latest social-accessory to explore. What I can tell you thus far is that there is intriguing information out there about how effective Twitter can be at capturing new, previously elusive markets. Folks who won’t be at the Rotary meetings, won’t be reading the Chamber’s newsletter – but will reading your Tweets – 2 states away and will be adding you to their vacation itinerary. Or, with all the updates they are getting on what is happening in your downtown, they will have their realtor check into building vacancies for their upcoming expansion. Who knows?!

The biggest thing is to start. Be proactive and take hold of these tools to put your downtown on the social media landscape map. You will also show your peers (the others born before 1980) that it isn’t that tough. Consider the Michigan Main Street Team as your official ring-side team, there in your corner, cheering you along – ready with the smelling salts if you need them. Now get out there and show ‘em whatcha got!

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Editor's Note: Ok, so our plan to live blog at the National Main Street Conference didn't go according to plan. Our apologies. However, the conference will still be serving as inspiration for our next few blogs, starting with this week's. A special "thank you" to the several presenters who highlighted our humble little blog as "a Main Street coordinating program who is doing it well." Recognition from our peers and people in our industry is always appreciated. Thank you. On with the Blog.... -JB



By Jamie Schriner-Hooper
Organization Specialist
Michigan Main Street
Michigan State Housing Development Authority


The Michigan Main Street staff just returned from the National Main Street Conference. This was my third time in attendance and as in the past, I came away from the conference with plenty of useful information and good ideas for our Michigan Main Street communities. This year’s conference focused in on Web 2.0. What I heard over and over again is that regardless of one’s field, everyone needs to be on the front end of technology, even just for simple communications.

While this year’s conference focused in on technology, ironically enough, our hotel did not have free wifi, and access at surrounding restaurants was difficult at best. I’m sure that conference attendees without a laptop were in the minority. While only a few years ago, it was fine to simply turn on your out-of-office assistant and change your voicemail to state that you were out of contact until your return date, in today’s world, that is no longer acceptable. While we still turn on that email notice, people still expect a response before you return home. More and more, we are required to remain constantly connected via some sort of means. I felt completely disconnected from the world without a wifi connection for my laptop – even though it was only for four days.

I’m a fairly new Blackberry owner. Prior to that, I had a flip phone for less than a year. I thought that I was an innovator by simply having a cell phone. Granted it was an old one with a battery that wouldn’t stay connected, but people could contact me regardless of where I was. Less than a year and a half after getting rid of that old phone, I now have constant access to the internet, my email, a large contact list, Facebook, Twitter and more with my cell phone. In fact, if I don’t have my phone with me, I panic, wondering what I would do if my car were to break down or I needed to call someone or I had to check who was doing what on Facebook. I’m sure that most of you are now the same way.

This is also the case in the wide world of Main Street. More and more, our communities are expected to not only have a website, but to also have a social media presence. It isn’t enough to have a website that has event dates and contact information; people want to know what the Main Street program is doing throughout the day. People expect to see Twitter “tweets,” Facebook or LinkedIn status updates, MySpace information, blogs, etc. If you’re not connected via a number of social media mechanisms, you’re only reaching a fraction of the audience that could become valuable volunteers, board members, supporters and more. In fact, Main Streets are now using virtual volunteers with great luck. That is, volunteers are recruited online and complete online projects. The Main Street managers often never even meet these folks. All communication is done via the internet and the final project is sent electronically to the Main Street program. Ten years ago, this would never even have been considered.

While the telephone or face-to-face used to be the preferred means of contact, we can’t expect this to continue to be the norm. This week, I sent my first text message to a colleague who was sitting two chairs away in a session. If someone told me even a month ago that I would communicate with someone two feet away via my cell phone, I would have told them that they were crazy. I guess the lesson here is that we need to constantly be readdressing our means of communicating our message. Regardless of your age, or background, if you’re not constantly changing your methods of communication and trying to stay up-to-date, you’ll be placed in the same group with your grandparents trying to figure out how to program the VCR.
We at the Michigan Main Street Center are trying to constantly stay on the front lines of today’s technology and social media. We’re creating a Ning page and are learning about things like Digg and Google Apps. But, we know that we can’t remain stagnant and rely on what we have now. We’ll continue to seek out the best way to communicate all that is going on in the wonderful worlds of our Michigan Main Street communities. As always, if you see a way that we can improve and a site on which we should have a presence, please be sure to let us know. I look forward to seeing you on web!

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Jodie Willobee - Day 3 of my first Main Street conference and I am officially, “Wow’d”. For cities wondering if becoming a Main Street is the way to go, attending this conference would certainly cinch the deal. Sure the sessions so far have been spot on just as you would expect. But it is the solid, positive energy from 1,600 attendees who know the Main Street 4-Point® works that has been the most amazing. There is genuine pride in the people here. You can see it in their face – hear it in their voice – and literally feel it in the room.

On of our Main Street Managers, Tom from Calumet described this conference as a “revival”. I can see how having more than a thousand people all nodding their head in agreement that historic preservation IS economic development could bring up that image. But this isn’t just a case of group-think. I have heard some staggering statistics to support the head nods. Proven results and enthusiastic downtowns will keep me singing Main Street’s praises for a long time. Hallelujah!

NOTE: Actual references to specific religions or political affiliations have been left out of this blog to keep the editor happy (and keep my job in tact).

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Joe Borgstrom- Ok, I'm frustrated. We're here at the National Main Street Conference and its theme is Web 2.0. Great, timely topic. One hitch. No free wi-fi or place for bloggers to set up. There's barely cell signal in the building. Even as I write this, its on a word document that I will save to a jump drive to upload onto one of the four laptops the 1,600 attendees will have to share to access the internet for free. Ugh. That's why the lack of updates. We will continue to struggle on.

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Joe Borgstrom- The Coordinators meeting in the morning were interesting talking about the impact of the economy on local businesses, Main Street programs and even state coordinating programs. Interesting tidbit of the day: Retail giants like Gap and William Sonoma are seeing sales down at 10% and 18%, respectively, while independent retailers who engage in buy local programs are only down only 5%. While not great news, it is encouraging that people are thinking about where they buy more these days and its impact on the local economy.

We took a tour of Wicker Park in the afternoon. What a cool neighborhood. Very artsy with lots of little shops and pubs along the way. We toured an artist colony. I was struck that in this grand metropolis of Chicago, at how much better many of the live-work artist projects MSHDA has been involved with (such as the Armory Arts in Jackson and Avenue of the Arts in Grand Rapids) are than this example. Don’t get me wrong, it was hip and cool and all. I am just even more impressed with the works going on in our state. The projects I mentioned not only have cool, hip vibes to them, but were much nicer (cleaner, better rehabbed) places for these artists to live. Great job Jackson and GR!

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Editor's Note: For the sake of brevity, we are suspending our normal format of the contributors name, title, yada, yada, yada. We will be using first and last names only. Once the conference is over, we will return to our regularily scheduled format.

Joe Borgstrom- We arrived late yesterday afternoon to the beautiful Palmer House Hotel off of State Street in Chicago. If you haven't been here before you really should, especially if you are into historic preservation. My friend Todd Barman from the National Main Street Center put it perfectly when we spoke yesterday and he called it, "the Sistine Chapel of hotels." Its hard not to walk into people here because everyone is looking at the ceiling!

Last night was the first unofficial function of the conference with a dinner of the state coordinators. I fully acknowledge I am NOT the coordinator of the program (Laura is) but these are wonderful and smart people, so I naturally want to pick their brains over a good meal. I had the good fortune to sit next to the legendary Thom Guzman from Iowa's Main Street program. Thom is widely regarded as the "godfather" of Main Street and Iowa's program the best in the nation. They've been a coordinating program for 20+ years. Our program has been doing this for six. I learned a few things last night. First, Thom is one of the most genuinely open and honest people I've met. Second, I was pleasantly surprised to hear we were doing many of the same things in regards to approaches with local communities. Every state program does things differently. When we're doing many of the same things as one of "the best" that gives me confidence we're doing right by our communities. Lastly, there's still a lot more we can do.

I'm looking forward to picking the brains of some more of our collegues here like Jeff Seigler from Ohio's Main Street program, Cary Tyson from Arkansas, Stephanie Redmond from New Mexico, Jeff Sandler from Virginia and a ton others. Stay tuned! Another packed day is ahead!

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Starting on Saturday, the Michigan Main Street Center @ MSHDA staff will be blogging live from the National Main Streets Conference in Downtown Chicago. Look for staff to share some of their experiences and opinions on the sessions and happenings in Chicago!

Stay tuned!

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By Dace Koenigsknecht
Economic Restructuring Specialist
Michigan Main Street Center
Michigan State Housing Development Authority

Clusters, as defined in a March 2006 report from the Brookings Institution, are “a group of firms and related economic actors and institutions located near one another and that draw productive advantage from their mutual proximity and connections.”

The idea of clusters has been recognized and studied for over a century, and people inherently understand the basic concept of mutual advantage. As an example from my previous life, General Motors constructs a new, state-of-the-art assembly plant on the west end of Lansing, in Delta Township. As a result, dozens of suppliers – big and small – construct facilities within a couple of miles, buying-in to GM’s philosophy of just-in-time delivery. This hub-and-spoke cluster concept benefits from close proximity; short distances keep shipping costs down, all firms benefit from local labor talent, and specialization reaffirms quality and innovation. As today’s economy shows, however, a single-industry cluster can have its down sides too.

In contrast to the highbrow definition of a cluster above, I offer a simplified version in a layman’s term: Downtown. Historically, downtowns were founded on the cluster model, be it a lumber mill or rail-side grain elevator, and grew to serve the local market demands. Through the decades, however, the complementary scene of a customer-focused downtown was supplanted by the mall and mass production. Much market research has been conducted over the past decade or two regarding the shift from sterile ‘Fordism’ to niche markets of high-quality, custom products. As anyone involved with the Michigan Main Street Program can attest, this harkens loudly to our position on authenticity. People are seeking the unique and different, whether they are customers or entrepreneurs, and downtowns should be the place to find just that.

Each downtown is unique in its physical environment, that’s well known, but how does your downtown (cluster) fare in the social aspect of community? Are your downtown interests competing with one another, rarely engaging in transactions, and intentionally not cooperating? OR, do they compete only to innovate and improve, and seek out cooperation due to a long list of mutual interests and benefits? I argue that the latter is the firmly-packed soil upon which creatives (people and ideas) can sprout. Our historic downtowns developed as centers of commerce due to proximity of creatives, one bouncing off the other until the result was cooperatively better than the original.

An example I heard recently illustrates my point: Niles’ Downtown Wedding Walk to be held in March. A local bridal shop initiated the idea of hosting a retail event focused on weddings, what I see as a themed cluster. Clusters are not static and rigidly confined, but rather dynamic and overlapping in scope and content. In this case, someone took an objective look at downtown Niles and saw all the components of a great wedding in the spaces surrounding them. Will Niles forever be known as the wedding capital? No, but I’m sure this creative approach will result in cash registers ringing – and not just for those businesses directly involved.

I leave you with an additional quote from the Brookings report I mentioned earlier. It describes an alternative method of defining a cluster that I find particularly applicable:
“…practitioners compose industry clusters on an ad hoc basis from among the firms (and related institutions) that they find close at hand. They frequently define cluster existence and membership by the attendance of firm owners or managers who agree to show up at meetings and who have enough common interest to be able to articulate and possibly act on some agenda of actions that will be to their mutual benefit. These operationally defined clusters may be...”
…called Michigan Main Street Programs!

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

Last fall, the Michigan Downtown Conference was lucky enough to have social media gurus Marianna Hayes and Andy Chapman from Team HALO as our keynote speakers. Their presentations on the new wave of social media created a lot of excitement among conference goers. As I sat in the back of the room ferociously taking notes, I knew right away we at the Michigan Main Street Center @ MSHDA needed to be at the forefront. Almost overnight (literally), Michigan downtown organizations began to pop up on Facebook. Within a few weeks, the MMSC@MSHDA had a Facebook group (now a fan page), a blog, a LinkedIn group, and even a Twitter account. Trust me, folks, we are ON the social media forefront. We even got props from the folks in the Buckeye State (and you know how much they like us.)

There was only was problem: With all these platforms, how were we going to keep things fresh and new without making it a full-time job? One of the most important things we were told during the aforementioned sessions was the need to keep content current. A Facebook page or blog with old information on it said more negative about your cause then none at all. I personally had already written three posts and was starting to wonder how I was going to keep up. We’ve now been doing this for nearly four whole months (which is like 4 YEARS in Internet time) and I think we have a pretty good system in place. Here are a few tips your downtown organization can use to keep your social media current:

Spread the Work Around- Though you may want to have only one person as the key contact person for your social media platforms, the content can be generated by multiple people. Here at the MMSC@MSHDA, our staff has been taking turns writing blogs (Ok, I’ve taken more then my share, but we do take turns.) A few weeks ago we reached out to one of our Advisory Committee members, Nancy Finegood, and asked her to write one for us. We are just now scratching the surface on having folks from outside our staff write too. This does a couple of things: 1) Spreads the work around. 2) Increases the audience for your blog and 3) gives you a great opportunity to allow a partners (or board members) to have the spotlight. Nancy did a great job and she was honored to be asked. We both won.

Search Engines Are Your Friend- We set up “Google Alerts” around our program and staff names. If anything gets posted on the web, especially from news sites, we know almost immediately. We then post as a new note or link on our social media platforms. Viola! Third party content that gives additional credibility and coverage to our programs while providing minimal effort on our end.

Don’t Assume the Users of One Site Use All of Them- One of the things I’ve been the most surprised about is the number of people who belong to only one of our platforms. Granted, some belong to multiple or all of them, but a surprisingly few. Furthermore, the audience tends to be different, especially between Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook tends to be community volunteers, urban planning students, and downtown enthusiasts, while LinkedIn are more the economic and community development professionals. We make sure that when we post a new blog, article or photos we let everyone on every platform know. We don't feel like we have to create different content for each platform.

Stay on Top of It- It is really easy to put updating this stuff off. When you do, it becomes an hour or two hour job instead of 10 or 15 minutes a day. Be tenacious about doing something little everyday.

While this isn't maintenance related, you should also look to promote your social media in everyday ways. Our staff include links to each platform as a part of our email signatures below our contact information.

I hope this helps. By all means this isn’t an “end-all-be-all.” We’d love to hear your tips and tricks to. Feel free to post below!

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