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Erin Barnes has spent her first two years at Main Street America traveling to communities across the network. Photo courtesy of Erin Barnes.
I recently celebrated my two-year anniversary as Main Street America’s President & CEO. During my time, I’ve had the opportunity to visit 42 Main Streets and speak with the staff and boards of those communities. Walking down Main Street with the people who love it is my favorite part of this job. I love being in the places themselves and hearing the stories of transformation directly from the people involved.
Great Main Streets are unique to the place they’re in. Each district has its own history and reflects the customs of the people who shaped it through its public spaces, food, architecture, and history. But as I have visited different communities, I have also developed the sense that great Main Streets have a few things in common. Here is what I’ve learned, so far.
The most successful Main Streets are hubs for interpersonal connection and backdrops for civic life. In the Fields Corner district of Dorchester — a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts — I was overwhelmed with emotion when we went to the Vietnamese American community center during the lunch hour. The seniors there have a tradition of dancing and singing karaoke during lunch, and the joy was electric as friends and acquaintances came together to be in community.
In Bastrop, Texas, Mike is a local business owner who spends much of the day singing and playing guitar on the sidewalk. Mike stopped our Main Street director on the street because he wrote a song about his town, including a whole verse about Micheala Joyce, the Main Street director!
These Main Streets are joyful, welcoming spaces for entire communities — and they didn’t get that way by accident. We know that creating distinctive, thriving places requires collaboration across all kinds of differences. Just because everyone is involved doesn’t mean that we will always agree. In fact, we may have serious, substantive disagreements with others in our communities — even people we work with every day. But Main Street works across lines of difference, drawing on our shared love of our shared places. This continuity is our strength. We have been doing this for forty-five years, and we have the wisdom and the joyful places to show for it.
Erin Barnes with the Main Street Oakland County team. Photo courtesy of Erin Barnes.
The smallest Main Street community in our network has a population of 294. I haven’t visited LaCrosse, Washington, yet, but I did visit Ortonville, Michigan, which is a community of 1,331 people. (An aside: when I did, I was surprised to meet three reporters from their local newspaper! I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see thriving local newspapers in many Main Street communities that I’ve visited.)
More than 60% of districts in our network are in communities of less than 10,000. Small communities, small towns, and small cities are fundamental to our movement.
And small businesses are the essential components on which our Main Streets are built. When Americans support local businesses, they are helping money stay in their communities and helping create stable jobs. In 2024, we collectively created more than 6,000 new businesses, more than 35,000 new jobs, and invested nearly $6 billion in our communities. Those small investments really add up!
From a pocket museum in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to an alley in Laclede’s Landing in St. Louis, Main Streeters sweat the small stuff. And we have evidence that it pays off.
I’ve also learned that Main Streeters share a belief in taking care of the things we love. Our movement has disproven the long-held myth that demolition and “starting anew” is a better, easier development path. We know that reusing older buildings and corridors is key to economic vitality. We know there is a value in spit and polish, in a fresh coat of paint, and in the Sisyphean act of bending down to pick up litter. And we know that the magic of preservation on Main Street is that we get to hold the history and the future in a single present moment.
Stewardship—like the culture of community care Frances Jo Hamilton created by washing the sidewalks in Delaware, Ohio—is the ongoing action of good governance upon which the Main Street model depends. Good governance is one of the Four Points and it’s fundamental to how we work at the local level as a key partner in often complex public private partnerships. But Main Streets make something that sounds complicated as simple as just having great relationships.
And I think another piece of this good governance that has really impressed me is the serious elbow grease that Main Street boards put in. I really saw this in action in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and in Washington, Missouri. These Boards really put the work in.
From left: Erin Barnes, Texas Main Street Director Amy Hammons, and Georgetown Texas Main Street Director Kim McAuliffe. Photo courtesy of Erin Barnes.
The opportunity to travel this country and see our communities is such a privilege, and a couple of challenges are becoming clearer to me. First, it feels like disasters, of all kinds, are becoming much more frequent. We’re building support for Main Street communities around disasters, but there is still so much more to do.
Second, my long drives from the airport to a Main Street community often feel like a tour of the dollar stores of America. This company — with its well-known record of dangerous labor violations, unfair pricing, and undercutting local grocery stores to contribute to food deserts — is absolutely proliferating across our country. Luckily, many local municipalities have found ways to stop them.
I had no idea that part of my job would be to see the inside of every single gorgeously restored historic theater in America. These are just extraordinary national treasures, and we’re so lucky to have so many on our Main Streets. And as a longtime independent bookstore employee (1994 — 2004 at Olsson’s Books & Records!), I am enamored with the inviting, quirky, homespun independent bookstores I see on all our Main Streets.
Strong Main Streets are not just places — they’re economic engines and civic laboratories. Having seen 42 of them in action, I’m sure there is plenty that I don’t know yet, but I believe that our civic lives are dependent on our shared Main Streets, and on the ongoing shared practice of shaping them. This is what our movement is best at, and it is what we will continue to do, every day, together.
Thanks to everyone who welcomed me in their communities!
Downtown Decorations, a Main Street America Allied Member, is this quarter’s Main Spotlight advertiser. For more information about what they do to support Main Street organizations, click here.
Main Street Now 2026 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is sure to be the biggest professional development event for civic leaders looking to boost their impact and role in the success of their local Main Street. And with registration as low as $200, it's an unbeatable opportunity.
Photo by BeauMonde Originals
Dionne Baux shares how Historic King Drive BID's executive director Ray Hill is leading the district to success by supporting strong economic sustainability.
Rooted in Main Street fundamentals and informed by feedback from across the network, the 2026 schedule is full of opportunities to exchange ideas, tackle real challenges, and gain practical tools to help communities stand strong for generations to come. Get a peek at new sessions, revamped favorites, and role-based learning tracks.
Photo by BeauMonde Originals
