Best Main Street Photos and Stories

Perhaps your major street is great because it honors the particular needs of every method of transportation, because it is wide and beautifully landscaped, or it's narrow and lined with wonderful historic buildings. Maybe you really did your homework about retail attraction, and have assembled an exquisitive collection of businesses.

Whether it's retail, office, service, residential, or all of the above, Main Street anchors downtown and provides a focal point for community pride. Almost everywhere in the U.S., it's been a struggle to keep every place on the main street (which might not be called Main Street, you know) occupied.

As retail tastes have changed, and big box stores sell a very large share of the goods that Americans purchase, your principal commercial thoroughfare has had to reinvent itself time and again to stay relevant, if your community is typical.

Places without a Main Street frequently try to create one, and success of these projects varies. Often they look fake because they are fake; real downtowns were built over years, not months. Although quality urban design features an overall pattern or motif, variation is essential as well to prevent monotony and boredom.

Of course in many cities across the world, the historic heart of downtown continues to thrive. Tell the rest of us how you keep that area vital. Are economic development strategies based on Westernization and urbanization affecting your version of Main Street? If so, how?

So let's see some of your nominations for great downtown efforts. Below you'll learn what some communities are doing.

What's Your Favorite Main Street?

What Main Street type of place (no matter what it's called) makes you want to visit over and over again?

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