Urban Main, a new program of the National Main Street Center, offers a new set of community-driven economic development services to help under-resourced older and historic neighborhood commercial districts restore economic vitality and promote quality of life.
UrbanMain will use many of the features of Main Street America grounded by the Main Street Four-Point Approach (Design, Organization, Promotion and Economic Vitality). However, urban districts often have different priorities, such as security, infrastructure, transportation, high vacancy rates, and access to capital, as well as addressing gentrification which may be different from priorities faced by other Main Street communities
The ultimate goal is alignment and focus in our implementation efforts. This tech visit will help Main Street Pontiac identify the “Transformation Strategies” that help us prioritize and will serve as the foundation of our work.
The majority of activities with our annual work plan will then be guided by the Strategies and aligned around an agreed direction and outcome. Transformation strategies provide direction for the revitalization initiative, and are implemented through work across the four points.
In addition to community partners, Main Street Pontiac is working Main Street Oakland County (MSOC) and Main Street America (MSA).
Main Street Oakland County is a coordinating program of Main Street America and is currently the only county-wide coordinating program in the country. MSOC supports Main Street Pontiac and other local programs in a number of ways, including technical assistance dollars for Select Level programs, such as Pontiac. MSOC is paying for the Urban Main Services tech visit.
The consultant for this tech visit is Dionne Baux, Director of Urban Program for Main Street America. Baux has over a decade of experience in project coordination in the fields of urban economic development and commercial district revitalization, particularly in Chicago. Her role is to help us distill the plans and survey feedback into 1-2 Transformation Strategies that will guide Main Street Pontiac’s work for the next 2-5 years.
This effort builds on a number of previous planning and outreach efforts. Existing planning documents are referenced below. Each document is a hyperlink to the document available on the City of Pontiac’s website.
