Resources
Mainstreets mean many things to many people, and there are a number of organisations with resources that can be helpful. Listed below are a few that we recommend.
Mainstreet Management: Successful Retail Strategies
By David West, Premier Retail Marketing
Discover how to engage businesses, improve the business mix, effectively promote mainstreets and deliver events. This book also demonstrates how to implement responsible governance processes and how to measure results and celebrate success and is full of practical advice.
www.mainstreetmanagementstrategies.com.au
Property Council of Australia’s SA Mainstreets Advocacy Committee collaborated with various Mainstreets organisations, landlords and tenants to measure success and knowledge gaps in mainstreet organisations. You can read the findings here:
SA Active Living Coalition
Street design has long been focussed around motorised transportation. For ideas to create pro-people street design with pedestrian and cycle friendly environments we suggest you have a look at SA Active Living Coalition's Streets for People Compendium.
https://www.healthyactivebydesign.com.au/images/uploads/StreetforPeopleCompendium_full.pdf
You can also read more on walking and cycling friendly mainstreets in the Heart Foundation's Discussion Paper, Good for Busine$$
https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/images/uploads/publications/Good-for-business.pdf
For a discussion on the Link and Place approach to street design:
https://www.atrf.info/papers/2009/2009_Jones_Boujenko.pdf
City of Adelaide - Adelaide Design Manual
A toolkit that builds on the City of Adelaide’s strengths and draws from local, national and international experience in urban design and sustainability principles, providing direction for the design of public spaces.
https://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/development/development-resources/adelaide-design-manual/
TOCEMA is an international think tank on town centre management. Follow the link below to view the TOCEMA town centre management guidelines:
http://www.tocema-worldwide.com/download-catalogue-tocema-worldwide-quality-mark.html
For more than twenty years, the Belgian Association of Town Centre Management (AMCV) has been working to make town centres good places to live, work, study and socialise. In this time they have built up considerable resources that we encourage you to explore.
https://amcv.be/livelycities-projet-en-18.html
Whilst dating back to 2011, there are still some interesting insights in the Portas Review: An independent review into the future of UK high streets.
Main Street America has a new publication (November 2019) - The Future of Retail: Creative Approaches to place-based Entrepreneurship. The paper provides a roadmap on how to adapt to the evolving retail landscape, with trends that are relatable in the Australian context.
The Canadian Urban Institute has produced an excellent toolkit: Rapid Placemaking to Bring Back Main Street - A Pandemic Recovery Toolkit for Local Communities. The toolkit provides examples of programming and interventions, as well as advice on how to use an inclusive process for rapid placemaking in a COVID-19 world.
https://bringbackmainstreet.ca/rapid-placemaking
Let us know if there are other resources you think should be included in this list.