National Main Street Program
The Main Street Approach
The Main Street Program, established by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, fosters economic development within the context of historic preservation. The Main Street Approach uses broad community participation and consensus to define and implement a vision for the downtown. It is a long-term approach to development that utilizes existing resources and works toward incremental change.
The National Main Street Program
Main Street is a national program, more than twenty years old, begun by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington. As you would expect, the people in the Trust were concerned about the loss of buildings and entire neighborhoods in America's cities and towns. The Trust started the Main Street program to promote and revitalize America's downtown districts and today the New London Main Street program is one of more than 1,500 communities in the National Main Street Program.
Member communities range from small towns of under 5,000 people in the Midwest to much larger neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. Each program is devoted to preserving what is good about a community and revitalizing its economic, social, and cultural life.
