Once upon a time, every American city and town with any size to it had a Main Street, one that in most years prospered. That changed, of course. It started with the proliferation of automobiles and paved roads. People could quickly get to a bigger, nearby Main Street with more varied shops and services.
The advent of suburbs, followed by malls, made many Main Streets anemic and killed some. Old timers will remember that not that long ago, Sears and Penney’s were on Concord’s Main Street. But another, bigger change, one under way for a decade, has picked up steam: the decline of bricks and mortar retailing as online sales, once a nibble, now gnaw away at their businesses. That change, we believe, will benefit Concord’s downtown – if, that is, the city continues its investment in making it a desirable destination.
Last week in the New York Times, Louis Hyman, an economic historian at Cornell University, called Main Street an American myth, one propped up by “fair trade” laws passed in the 1930s to protect local merchants from chain stores and the bulk-buying discount prices they could command from manufacturers. No president can bring America’s decayed Main Streets back to life Hyman said. “Main Streets of small, independent boutiques and non-franchised restaurants can be found in affluent college towns, in gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn and San Francisco, in tony suburbs – any place where people have ample disposable income. Main Street requires shoppers who don’t really care about low prices.”
Concord, a state capital and regional medical center, has some of those shoppers, but its Main Street offers a mix of upscale and modestly priced restaurants and shops. Main Street, we believe, will be changed by at least two forces: the downsizing of the retail industry and the move from suburbs back to cities.
Sears, once the nation’s major retailer, recently announced that its future is in doubt. Many chains are, were or will be in bankruptcy – Payless Shoes, Radio Shack, Penney’s, Borders, Circuit City. Others, such as Sears, Macy’s and Kmart, are closing stores. Retail analysts say that so far this year 38,000 jobs have been shed by retailers. Meanwhile, Amazon is hiring.
It’s the stores in the middle of the economic pack that are getting killed. Discount stores are thriving and so is Tiffany’s. But in a response that may bode well for downtown Concord, the Target chain has begun opening TargetExpress stores one-sixth the size of their standard outlets in center cities. That sort of thing could happen in downtown Concord, particularly if Sears and the other anchor stores in malls meet their demise. A continued investment in the Main Street Project, which should never be considered complete, could create the modern version of the Main Streets of old.
Internet businesses have begun opening physical stores where people can touch, feel, smell, try on and try out products before ordering them online. Some use virtual reality technology to allow people to “see” how they’d look with that color blouse or this color lipstick, or 3-D body scanners to guarantee a perfect fit. That, too, will come to Concord.
Expanding downtown will speed things along. The coming opening of a speakeasy-style bar and restaurant in what years ago was the home of Cheers will be a good start. The basements of the other buildings on Low Avenue, now used mostly for storage, should become shops and food stands – a Diagon Alley if you will. Storrs Street should be extended. High-speed cable service would attract businesses and fill vacant office space. Free Internet access, creative lighting, performances in the Eagle Square amphitheater and Bicentennial Square, and more buskers and street art would bring people downtown.
Concord’s Main Street is not imperiled. It’s begun its renaissance.