The Heartline of America:
The Rise, Fall, and Revival of the American Main Street
‘When you come to the main gate, past the railroad station, down the steps and across the band concert park, straight ahead lies the heartline of America, an old-fashioned Main Street. Hometown USA just after the turn of the century. America was growing fast. Towns and villages were turning into cities. Soon, the gas light would be replaced by electricity. But that was all still in the future. At this time, little Main Street was still the most important spot in the nation, combining the colour of frontier days with the oncoming excitement of the new twentieth-century.’ — Walt Disney.
Rise
As towns sprang up across America during the 1800s, they tended to anchor their commercial centres along the main road that ran through the area — hence the name, Main Street. In most cases, its layout was simple enough — a rectilinear design with shops lining both sides of the road. But this avenue was more than just a hub for local businesses and traffic flow; Main Street was central to all aspects of life in small town America, with civic and residential functions alongside its primary commercial purpose. The street acted as an open space for the community to come together in, a setting for parades and other civic events. It also often houses civic buildings such as city halls, courthouses and churches. As many buildings were two or three stories tall, spaces above the shops were often used for housing and offices. In this way, Disney’s Main Street U.S.A. reflects many of the street’s traditional functions, with its parades and “civic” buildings like Disneyland City Hall accompanying the various shops; the upper floors of structures are even used as company offices.
The American Main Street really was the heartline of America, as its centrality and multi-functionality made it a space in which townspeople across America came together and interacted as a community. Nevertheless, the age of the traditional Main Street did not last forever.
North Adams Main Street, Massachusetts, circa 1900
Festival of Fantasy Parade, Magic Kingdom.
Levitown, Pennsylvania, circa. 1959.
Fall
From the 1920s onwards, the spread of the automobile began to disperse communities and, suddenly, Main Street was no longer so central. After the Second World War, the plight of these downtown areas was amplified. Suburbia began to thrive as massive settlements like the Levittowns were built outside of the cramped inner city areas, and the largely white, car-oriented middle-class flocked to these areas (African-Americans were excluded from Levittowns by racial covenants in the lease agreements). The Federal Government aided the rise of suburbia with Veterans Administration mortgages helping returning veterans to purchase these new homes, and the Federal Highway Administration constructed more roads to make commuting an attractive possibility for anyone with business in the cities. Main Streets were left behind as population centres shifted and shopping malls were constructed to cater to the new suburban residents.
Revival
Main Street was not neglected for long though; over the last half century, different groups have sought to revitalise it in various forms. Some of this revivalist sentiment can certainly be attributed to the influence of Walt Disney and Main Street U.S.A., as since 1955 guests have been returning to their hometowns invigorated with a passion to rescue their own declining downtown districts.
One way this has been done is through Main Street preservation and revitalisation programmes. The National Main Street Center (NMSC) was established by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1980, and has helped over 2000 communities across the US to bring business back to downtown areas that suffered in the postwar years. Since the NMSC’s foundation, $85 billion has been reinvested, 150,000 businesses started, 670,000 jobs created, and almost 300,000 buildings rehabilitated. Amongst the many success stories is Livermore, California, located about 45 miles east of San Francisco. It thrived in the nineteenth century as a hub for the thousands of gold miners that flocked to the region, and swelled in the twentieth as a naval air station and national laboratories made it their home. However, the area began to struggle when malls pulled people away from the city’s historic core, causing the local community to seek help from the NMSC to revive downtown Livermore. By introducing speciality businesses with character, unusual dining experiences, and new housing nearby, this historic district was turned around. They even managed to reroute Highway 84 which once cut across downtown but now has made room for a two-lane street with plenty of diagonal parking, helping to increase footfall.
Alternatively, Main Streets have experienced a resurgence through the phenomenon of the lifestyle centre. Fuelled by “mall fatigue” and the desire of commercial developers to instil a feeling of community in shopping venues that had been lost with the neglect of Main Streets, lifestyle centres have proliferated since the 1990s. This retailing trend sees high end shops relocate from indoor malls to new venues that imitate the traditional Main Streets. However, they are only facsimiles of the real thing as lifestyle centres tend to be pedestrianised areas that offer a complete experience including shopping, dining, and entertainment, and shun the individual small business in favour of retail giants. You can even find one at Walt Disney World, where an example of a “new” Main Street, Disney Springs, stands just a few miles from the utopian Main Street U.S.A. of old.
Livermore, California.
Google maps showing Livermore, California. Drag the yellow figure onto the map for street view.
Disney Springs, Walt Disney World.
In summary, neither of these strategies replicate the traditional American Main Street. But that is the point. Change is inevitable and, as with everything else in the world, Main Street had to make a choice: adapt or die. Whilst it seemed to flatline in the postwar years, more recently “the heartline of America” has evolved into something capable of surviving in the twenty-first century, whilst retaining some its core ideal of community.
