Jein Park
Recent events, including the pandemic and a succession of natural disasters around the country, have highlighted that it is crucial for commercial corridors to be ready to respond to unanticipated threats to their long-term vitality.
“Main Street” programs and business associations have historically focused their energy and resources on revitalization efforts that prioritize aesthetic improvements and vacancy relief over long-term adaptive capacity. Yet revitalization strategies alone are not sufficient to support downtowns and commercial corridors through unexpected shocks or longer-term disruptions.
Organizations, institutions, and individual stakeholders in commercial districts must shift their focus from creating revitalized districts to building resilient districts that are more adaptable in the face of uncertainty.
In my new working paper, “Building Resilient Communities: Lessons Learned for Sustained Revitalization of Commercial Corridors,” written as part of my Gramlich Fellowship in Community and Economic Development, I explore efforts to build resilient corridors in eleven historically disinvested post-industrial cities in Massachusetts.
My research leverages insights from MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) program, which provides a full-time fellow to commercial districts in Gateway Cities for three-year terms.
Fellows provide economic development expertise, serve as relationship builders for place-based economic development, and leverage state-sponsored TDI tools, including modest funding. TDI fellows have “eyes and ears” on the ground about the challenges and opportunities facing commercial corridors, and the latitude and resources to begin to address gaps that communities and community development organizations often struggle to address, and that promote both long-term resiliency and shorter-term revitalization.
Fellows Build Relationships with Stakeholders
Through focus groups with fellows serving in 11 communities, I learned about elements that are crucial to resiliency planning.
First, fellows work to build relationships with stakeholders in small geographic areas. This hyperlocal capacity-building includes door-to-door community engagement, which can lead to strong local networks and shared visions for commercial corridors.
Second, the TDI fellows have access to direct and flexible resource pools such as equity investments and creative catalyst grants.
As a result, unlike traditional economic development approaches that rely on bureaucratic and administrative processes, fellows work in the community to identify local champions, help the community come together and express a collective vision, provide capital for small-scale experiments, and build connections through conversations with business owners.
Pittsfield Streetscape Incorporates Feedback
In many of the Gateway Cities, TDI fellows work directly with business owners, with emphasis on immigrant entrepreneurs who may not have participated in traditional public systems.
Trust takes time to build, but once established, TDI fellows serve as crucial intermediaries to ensure that economic development includes the voices of these entrepreneurs and captures their challenges and hopes.
In Pittsfield, a TDI fellow led a streetscapes project that beautified downtown through greenery and cleanliness, which helped break down perceptions that may have steered foot traffic away from the corridor.
This effort was not just about physical upgrades but also about making business owners feel supported and included in the broader community. Fellows took time to build trust and ensure that business owners, especially immigrant owners, had a sense of ownership over changes in the project, cultivating a collaborative relationship that empowered them to participate in the streetscape redesign.
What Are the Limitations of TDI Fellows?
While the TDI’s localized focus has proven effective in addressing specific needs within communities, its hyperlocal scale and three-year timeline do present some limitations.
First, the three-year placement creates a natural endpoint that requires intentional transition planning. Community development corporations must sustain TDI’s foundational work; they represent the bridge between short-term catalytic programs and the long-term efforts required to build resilient commercial corridors.
Second, the program’s hyperlocal focus cannot address broader regional challenges, such as housing instability, regional disparities and wealth inequality, which require a regional approach.
While TDI’s model has proven effective at addressing resilience at the district level, it must be linked to broader efforts to drive widespread, transformative change at a regional level.
Building resilient commercial corridors means changing the way communities engage, access resources and build long-term networks. MassDevelopment’s TDI program has demonstrated how a short-term program can lay the foundation for long-term resiliency by developing strong networks, a sense of agency and belief and hope in transformation.
Jein Park is a recent masters in urban planning graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a current planner at the Boston Planning Department. She was a 2024 Gramlich Fellow at the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. Her column has been republished from the Center’s Housing Perspectives blog.
