MAIN STREET REVISITED: TIME, SPACE AND IMAGE BUILDING IN SMALL-TOWN AMERICA

Urban landscapes are studied in many ways. Some researchers are interested in counting and statistically generating data about how urban landscapes operate. Others are interested in simply observing people in their urban places. Still others are detectives, peeling back the layers of the place through historical investigation of printed material or interviewing the people who made the place. These modi operandi reflect the complexity of the subject itself and point out the importance of different perspectives or lenses through which we can view landscape to understand it better. Richard Francaviglia, a historical geographer in detective mode, is interested in why and how small town Main Streets developed into the icons that we recognize and try to recreate today. In Main Street Revisited he explores Main Street as an urban landscape archetype of interest because of the rich possibilities for interpreting people’s motives and expressions about place and place-making. His research methods are typical of a historical geographer--the works of others, historical documents, and his own anecdotal experiences and careful observations. He uses three lenses through which to view Main Street, defined broadly as the downtown district of a small town: time, space, and image. These lenses are organized into sections or chapters: "Time and Main Street: The Origins and Evolution of an Image; .... Space and Main Street: Toward a Spatial and Regional Identity;" and "Image Building and Main Street: The Shaping of a Popular American Icon." The sections are then threaded together by sixteen axioms proposed by Francaviglia that characterize the design and evolution of Main Streets over time. I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it is a careful study of the morphology of Main Street, how it originated and evolved. I admire the readability of the book, with its many detailed examples and illustrations. There is no doubt that Francaviglia has done his homework in terms of observing and documenting Main Street. The historical research and background is very useful and, to a non-historian, seems very rigorous. What I find confusing are some of his interpretations, especially as developed through the sixteen axioms. Some of the axioms are insightful and could have been expanded, such as Axiom 10: "Although the layout of Main Street may seem largely functional, its design is also related to deeply held aesthetic values about the way space should be arranged" (p. 105). However, sometimes the axoms’ simplistic content erodes confidence in the book. For example, "The facade of the building becomes more important than any other elevation because it faces Main Street" (p. 27) is a self-evident statement. Similarly, "The more visible or accessible a property or building on Main Street, the more valuable it will be as commercial property" provides us with little newinformation. Some of the axioms raise serious questions about heritage, authenticity, and community. For example, Axiom 13 reads: "Interpretations of a community’s past affect how its historic structures and other features will be treated: a contempt for the past will hasten the destruction of the reminders of the past, while a romanticizing of it will help preserve its historic fabric" (p. 140). Francaviglia observes that small towns that have been idealized by literature and popular culture have often been preserved into something that is more attractive than the original. Is this what creation of community is about? I am not convinced we should be romanticizing the past and recreating a "modernized version" as the way of the future. This seems antithetical to the creation of sustainable communities and to our changing attitudes toward landscape and to landscape systems. Main Street, as an urban landscape archetype, should be responding to more than just a heritage imperative. As we idealize these place images, Francaviglia comments, they become a refuge for people who long for times past. This seems to emphasize the problem of an "unconscious" public, which is created not thinking about how individuals and groups make our places both private and public. Main Street is an interesting intersection of public and private worlds. The public street has a potential for community building and for supporting a public life. The buildings that face the street, often private, can give gifts to our public world. It is perhaps more important to re-invent Main Street in response to changing social behavior or at least to attempt a current and fresh-built-form response to human patterns. Francaviglia intimates that small towns require a rooting in the past, even if it is as inauthentic as "improving upon" what used to be by recreating a heritage streetscape. I am not sure I agree. I still believe that communities thrive on authenticity and work best when they develop from their own current reality, as Francaviglia suggests by the title of Section 2: "Toward a Spatial and Regional Identity." The working nature of any small town should be reflected in the forms, spaces, and structure of its Main Street as opposed to an attempt to recreate forms of the past. I am not suggesting that heritage structures be destroyed, but rather that new additions to Main Streets respond to other various, important imperatives such as climate, economic incentives, or community building strategies. One of the most interesting sections of the book is about Walt Disney and the Disneyfication of Main Street. Francaviglia makes good observations about the translation of Walt Disney’s hometown experience to Disneyland, in particular. Francaviglia is objective about the effects of Disney on the American landscape, clearly articulating the approach of scaling down "real-size" and translat-