Main Street's Changing as a Central Place, an Economic Center, and a Neighborhood: Regionalization, Retail Trade, and Applying the New Urbanism

This thesis asks what Main Street's role as a central place is today, and what economic forces keep it from becoming an economic center, a central place, and a neighborhood. In the past, Main Streets and small town downtowns filled these roles. This thesis finds that today Main Streets are central places for only specific uses, like niche markets, historic preservation, tourism, and community identity centers. They are no longer true living/working neighborhoods. Sprawl, decentralization, regionalization, and changes retail structure are causes for Main Street's diminished role in today's built environment. It proposes returning Main Streets to traditional neighborhoods, similar to a New Urbanist TND (traditional neighborhood design), and similar to the neighborhoods they were in the past. It uses a case study of Exeter, New Hampshire to illustrate findings in the literature.