Citizen Planner Main Street Assessment
The Main Street Sandwich Method guide introduces urban design terms commonly used in code to help demystify planning language. PLANNING GRAPHIC INSPIRED FROM ANDRES DUANY, ADAPTED TO ILLUSTRATE THE VARIOUS SEGMENTS OF A TYPICAL RURAL MAIN STREET IN CONTEXT (Duany & Talen, 2001). By Paul Moberly, AICP, Utah
Special thanks to Aubrey Larsen, Flint Timmins, and Kyle Slaughter in Utah’s Community Development Office for their ideas, thoughts, edits, and contributions.
Successful communities recognize the importance of Main Street; it is the community’s “public face” and often serves as the cultural, social, and economic center for small communities. Residents, workers, and visitors benefit from the access to goods, services, amenities, employment, and opportunities to participate in the community life that main street provides. Since Main Streets serve as core components of both community and economic development, they can be an engine for revitalization and prosperity; conversely, losing such amenities and gathering places can dramatically weaken any community’s identity and can contribute to an economic downturn.
Many small cities and rural towns in Utah struggle to keep their main streets viable and thriving. Due to the lack of paid planners and a state-sponsored Main Street program in Utah, many communities are left without the necessary resources to address struggling, unattractive main streets—many don’t know where to start. The State of Utah’s Community Development Office (CDO) saw a need for a simple, quality resource for citizen planners to use so that they can confidently assess their local main streets and identify needed improvements, then move towards positive change. They created the award-winning Main Street Sandwich Method for rural citizen planners to help assess a community’s main street. 30
The best main streets are built like your favorite sandwich. The buns hold everything together while the condiments add flavor and compliment the meat. Just as a hamburger differs from a turkey hoagie, each community’s main street has a different “flavor,” emphasis, or makeup that makes it unique. An excellent main street supports the needs of residents, businesses, tourism, and recreation alike.
Just like a great sandwich has different ingredients with different roles, the sandwich metaphor in Main Street Sandwich Method is used three ways: one, to examine the various segments of a Main Street individually; two, that a good Main Street is made up of a variety of different elements unique to each community; and three, that the assessment should similarly be unique to the community and situation.
A familiar planning graphic adapted to illustrate the various segments of a typical rural main street in context. The Main Street Sandwich Method is specifically tailored for small towns and citizen planners. It helps those not otherwise familiar with urban planning look at and understand their main street and identify opportunities for improvement. Local residents are the experts on how their community functions. They are intimately aware of what is SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
