What We Learned Attending the National Main Streets Conference in Detroit

When a conference starts with a gospel choir in flowing red robes belting out amazing sounds, that’s a pretty good sign you’re in for something special. That was the scene we saw at the Plenary Session of the National Main Streets conference recently held in Detroit.

Drop dead gorgeous Art Deco skyscrapers in Detroit. Credit: DDM.

If you want to see ground zero of community transformation in the United States and possibly anywhere in the world today – you have to go to Detroit. Beautifully restored buildings downtown, a world-class river walk, and active public spaces are transforming this place for the better.  We had a chance to see some of the crown jewels including the Campus Martius Park downtown and Eastern Market.  There are so many others, really too many to mention, including Midtown, Corktown, Indian Village, and Boston Edison. Detroit’s island park Belle Isle designed by Frederick Law Olmsted is getting rediscovered. Civic gems like the Detroit Opera House, Orchestra Hall, and the Detroit Institute of Arts continue to shine. If there is a city that has faced overwhelming odds and overcome them, few compare with Detroit. And for the city to be coming back strong the way it is today is truly inspiring.

Plenary Session at the National Main Streets Conference in Detroit. Credit: DDM.

The National Main Streets Center has also gone through an exciting transformation of its own. Over the past year the National Main Streets Center successfully spun off as a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. While the Trust stewarded this program for over three decades, the time had come for Main Street to stand on its own. And that it has done. Under the able direction of President and CEO Patrice Frey, Chairperson Barbara Sidway, and their founding Board members – Main Street has a new sense of vitality, energy, and enthusiasm.

The Plenary Session of the conference was a highpoint for me at a number of levels. Our community was one of only two communities recognized nationally as “Ones to Watch” by the National Main Street Center. How unreal it was to see pictures of our community and major projects like the Elks Home go up on the big screen before over a thousand people. Then we got a chance to stand up and get recognized to a sustained and thunderous applause. This was an acknowledgement of the incredible change and transformation that has happened in Middlesboro in just over the past two years.  My only regret is that we couldn’t bring every one of our volunteers, partners, and residents to experience that.

The next morning we had the pleasure to lead a session on “Using Tactical Urbanism to Preserve Downtowns.” We were joined by Mike Lydon from Street Plans Collaborative and Caitlyn Horose with the Orton Family Foundation. These two were instrumental in our first Better Block project back in October 2013. This is when we reopened a theater that had been closed 30 years, opened the children’s Exploration Center in a vacant storefront, and enlisted over 100 volunteers from 17 states to perform tactical interventions downtown. While our session was in the early morning, it was so gratifying to see a nearly filled room and the energy of ideas being shared between people. During that session we announced #BetterMainStreet that is an initiative for downtowns all over the U.S. to carry out tactical interventions the first weekend of October. And nearly everyone in the room agreed to do something.

And as great as Detroit was, you better bet we’re going to Atlanta for the next National Main Streets Conference in 2015. Not just that. We’re going to get a bus, fill it with our Board members and whoever wants to join us, and celebrate the gains our community makes between now and then. This brings us to our biggest takeway. Main Street is more than just about one community working at the local level in isolation – it’s a national movement of people pursuing common sense strategies to make places better all throughout the United States and beyond. In order for this movement to take off, we need people with strength in their convictions and a hunger and thirst for results to show up. So why not join us in Atlanta from March 30-April 2, 2015 to see what this exciting Main Street work is all about?