There’s nothing quite like walking down the Main Street in a small town or community – doing some shopping. Walking from store to store and picking up various items as you go. And, while you may be making some purchases along the way, it’s not really about the transactions. It’s about the experience. It’s the conversations you have as you talk with store owners, ask about their families, and find out the latest news in town. You bump into neighbors and friends along the way. There is a real feeling of community, a feeling of ‘belonging.’ This is what I remember growing up in the small town of Newport, New Hampshire. And it’s a feeling that I think many of us value.
This past weekend, I took a trip over to Claremont, New Hampshire, right next door to my hometown of Newport, to enjoy ‘Claremont Day,’ a celebration of the continued revitalization of Pleasant Street - Claremont’s main street. The energy on the street was incredible. Tents were out promoting local businesses and services. Great food was being served by local restaurants including a new coffee shop. Also, got a tour of a ‘speakeasy’ - a sneak peak of their exciting business that is launching in the next few weeks. To see a community like Claremont that has dealt with more than its fair share of adversity over the last few decades come to life the way that it did last weekend wasn’t just inspiring, it was electrifying. Seeing folks from across New Hampshire as well as New England, sharing in conversations, making connections, and enjoying a feeling of community gave us all a glimpse of what ‘Main Street’ truly means to small towns and communities across America.
While we may often think of Main Street purely from an economic perspective, the real meaning of Main Street, and the reasons to champion it, run much deeper. What Main Street offers us goes beyond simple transactions like buying provisions for our home, it offers us a sense of place where connections to community are made, and where a sense of security and comfort takes shape. Being on a first-name basis with the local baker or bookstore owner, knowing a little bit about their lives for example, creates a personal bond to the community, strengthening our sense of identity and local pride. In turn, we tend to become more actively involved in our communities, facing challenges collectively as they come while also preserving the things that matter most.
When we lose a sense of place, we tend to see the homogenization of our communities, which in turn has its own economic and social downsides. As small towns continue to face even more competition from the global economy, the importance of preserving the culture of our Main Streets becomes all too clear. They aren’t simply places of commerce, they are bastions of culture and community, the very heart and soul of our shared history. As Pulitzer Prize winning author Wallace Stegner once said, “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” When our Main Streets are vibrant, so too our communities, and when our communities are strong, so too are our values.
As I strolled down Pleasant Street last weekend, I had the good fortune of having a few conversations with local store owners and leaders, each of whom expressed incredible optimism for what rebuilding Main Street could do for the Claremont community and even the region. When I finally got in my car to drive home after such a wonderful day, I was overcome by a spirit of optimism about what we can accomplish and restore when we champion our small towns little by little, Main Street by Main Street.
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