Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America

By Richard V. Francaviglia University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, Iowa, 1996. Softcover, 192 pp., $17.95 New Urbanists will enjoy this book for the clues it provides to the form, social value, and composition of main streets. Richard Francaviglia, a professor of history at the University of Texas, “revisits” main street attributes, and presents 16 basic principles of their design. Furthermore, he provides a basis for reinterpreting the place at the confluence of commerce and culture. According the the author: • Main street is the sum of individual buildings grouped together, where a series of such buildings become “townscape” by being placed side by side to maximize the use of valuable space in the commercial sector. • Location is a primary asset on main street. The more visible or accessible a property is, the more valuable it will be. • Main street is both functional and aesthetic. Design is related to deeply held values about the way space should be arranged and how people should relate to it and to each other. • The facade of buildings on main street are more important than any other elevation because they face the principal thoroughfare. • Main street reflects the social life of a community. A primary goal of main street development is to affect interpersonal behavior through the creation of spaces that concentrate populations and encourage merchants and customers to interact. Francaviglia asserts that main street provides a more cohesive sense of community than malls and shopping centers. He believes that the concept of main street exists in our hearts and in our minds, and that it is iconically persistent because it is accepted as an integral part of American life and leisure. He traces Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri, in 1905 to the recreation of that well known central artery in Disney World. The book provides some spatially relevant insights. For example, Francaviglia’s rule of thumb for towns with fewer than 12,000 people is that population is closely correlated with the number of blocks of main street commercial architecture. Normally, one block will characterize a community of 500 people, two blocks indicate 1,000 people, four blocks about 2,000 and six blocks about 4,000 to 5,000. Typically, however, main street will only reach four blocks to avoid creating too long a distance to traverse. He explains downtown usually begins to develop into a more squared-off or compact form, after four blocks. At the crossroads of commerce, transportation, civic identity, and spatial range, main street is dissected three major elements — the street and its pattern; the buildings; and the open spaces such as parks, squares, and greens. He provides the urban designer with historical precedents for courthouse squares and variations of their types, and provides a useful glossary. He mentions such terms as “Block Square,” “Circle in a Square Town Plan,” Lancaster Square,” and “Philadelphia Square” to illustrate the differences between several main street types. These variations involve different spatial arrangements for a system of streets, blocks, buildings, and open spaces. If you take the opportunity to revisit main street by reading this book, you will better understand how the public realm of towns and cities helps to create a more socially diverse and lively environment. u Thomas J. Comitta is Principal of Thomas Comitta Associates, Inc. (TCA), a Town Planning firm in West Chester, Pennsylvania.