Is "The Main Street USA Approach" right for Berkeley?

www.mainstreetusa.org

The “Main Street Approach” is a “community-driven, comprehensive methodology” to revitalize business districts, premised on encourag[ing] economic development within the context of historic preservation in ways appropriate to today's marketplace.” The Approach emphasizes that it is an “incremental” plan that is “not designed to produce immediate change,” and cautions against following in the footsteps of plans that fail to address the root causes of economic decline, choosing, rather, to go for quick-fix solutions like arena’s or pedestrian malls. Bolstering its claims, Main Street USA touts statistics proclaiming the creation of an average of 250 new jobs over 10 years, and cumulative net growth of new businesses totaling an average of 70 over the same period.

Me: “Wow! That sounds great! Where do I sign?”

Main Street USA: “Well, as it turns out, Berkeley is already a success story!”

Me: “Bees in the what now?”

Berkeley is listed among the success stories of the program, under the title “Berkeley, Calif., tackles social issues and alters perception of crime.” Listed among the achievements of the DBA’s adoption of the Main Street USA Approach are changing the city’s attitude towards the downtown area, tackling social issues (read: Homelessness), and altering the perception of crime downtown. To hear them tell it, Berkeley is already a thriving community with a strong economic outlook and a firm grip on the issues of homelessness and crime.

To understand how this might be, one need only look at the date of publication: 1997. Now, I have no idea what Berkeley was like in 1997, but I have no reason to doubt that it was well on its way towards fabulous revitalization. Berkeley circa 2008, however, appears to present a different perspective. Nevertheless, the Main Street USA Approach does appear to contain some useful advice for those contemplating a redevelopment scheme. The Approach emphasizes that the scheme must be comprehensive and incremental, incorporate Self-Help in the form of true commitment by the residents and business owners of the rewards of the program even if it requires changing their attitudes, emphasize quality in every aspect of the project, working with the existing strengths of the city, and implementing the plan in a way that yields frequent visible changes to remind those involved that the project is underway and is succeeding.

Applying these principles to the DAPAC plan, it appears that Berkeley may have a few lessons to learn. First, the DAPAC plan appears to fall victim to the urge to cut in broad swaths rather than making incremental gains. This is evident in the plan’s call for a pedestrian walkway on Center Street and the Day-Lighting of Strawberry Creek. These would constitute radical changes to the streetscape of the downtown area, not the incremental but visible improvements advised by Main Street USA. Second, from the accounts given by the various speakers and the narrow passage of the DAPAC plan (along with the veiled allegations that even some of those voting in support of the plan did so only because they doubt is real viability), Berkeley cannot claim to have built a consensus among the interested parties.

Still, all is not necessarily lost for Berkeley. Scanning the list of the “nuts-and-bolts ingredients” of a successful program, Berkeley’s situation does not seem hopeless. Of the seven ingredients listed, Berkeley satisfies five: (1) a traditional business district exists, with (2) a decent concentration of remaining businesses; (3) the area is committed to revitalizing the downtown, and (4) has adequate human and financial resources to do so (according to Mayor Bates, at least); finally, (5) there is a commitment to maintaining historical buildings. What Berkeley lacks is (1) broad-based support for the revitalization plan and (2) consensus among the affected parties. From this, it appears that Main Street USA would advise Berkeley to attempt to build a consensus in the community over the need for and implementation of a revitalization plan. Realistically, this seems unlikely. Given the creation of the DAPAC plan and the commencement of construction of the Brower Center and the new UC Berkeley Art Museum, though, the area does appear to be moving forward with incremental changes that have the potential to yield visible improvements in the area. Perhaps the success of these programs can be an end-run around the so-call consensus pre-requisite, turning public opinion in favor of the redevelopment plan after its implementation rather than before.