Earlier this month, Gov. Josh Stein attended the North Carolina Main Street Conference in Mooresville. NC Main Street is part of a national organization, called Main Street America, that seeks to preserve and improve Main Streets across the country as various challenges and changes arise.
While municipalities, even in the reddest counties, tend to be dots of deep blue, conservatives shouldn’t abandon the planning and decision-making around downtowns to their progressive neighbors. Instead there are ways to contribute to the conversation and offer a different perspective. But when we do, it’ll help to look beyond the red-blue fights of our current polemical politics (which don’t always map onto the dynamics of local debates) and realize both progressives and conservatives bring unique and helpful instincts to the table.
Small business
Downtowns are exciting places for the entrepreneurial-minded. This is one area progressives and conservatives actually come together very well. I’ve always enjoyed the creativity and risk-taking spirit of many on the left. They are often motivated to start something new — whether in the arts, a community initiative, or a small shop downtown.
Conservatives often have an interest in business and economics too, as well as opinions on how to optimize conditions in these areas. Our views on reducing taxes, fees, and regulations; or on best practices around accounting, hiring, and marketing, can certainly contribute keep Main Street a draw and keep small businesses.
Free use of property
The drive to preserve and protect the status quo is a good one when you have a beautiful historic town. But if there is no flexibility, historic commissions and zoning boards can choke out emerging ideas and prevent new chapters in the town’s history from being written. There can also be a tendency to see a problem (say, lack of affordable housing), and think, “We need a government program to build or mandate more affordable units.”
Conservatives, with our strong principles around property rights, can help balance out these discussions. Why can’t we just let the shack be torn down and a nice home be built on their property? Do we have to regulate the color and style of everything? If we made it easier to build a lot more housing downtown, wouldn’t that be an easier way to ensure there are affordable units available?
Law and order
Progressives can also be credited with having compassion when it comes to issues of criminal justice. I think this can be a good impulse too. But if taken to extremes, and without balancing voices for law and order, it can quickly lead to unsafe and unattractive environments in downtowns. Allowing vagrancy, vandalism, public intoxication, shoplifting, and other petty crimes may appear merciful towards those committing the acts, but it victimizes the business owners and citizens who these crimes were committed against. This can, in turn, drive people away from downtowns.
In Oregon, where there were very few right-of-center voices contributing, they legalized hard drugs and allowed public drug use. But a very short time later, after seeing a spike in overdose deaths and violence in places like downtown Portland, the state voted last year to reverse the decision and recriminalize drugs.
Philanthropy
It is a cliche on the right that when someone suggests creating a government program to accomplish a goal, we will respond that it “should be left to the private sector.” And there has been a long successful history of big privately funded projects in the United States. There are performing arts centers, museums, parks, colleges, hospitals, and so much more — and not just in big cities, but in small towns across the nation — because wealthy donors thought building them would help the community.
This kind of philanthropy is where conservatives can put their money where their mouth is on private-sector solutions. If your town has a run-down theater, and someone proposes spending public money to fix it up, see if they’ll consider a private fundraiser instead. Many things are worth preserving in Main Street America, but that doesn’t mean government should be the way it’s done.
Preserving cultural heritage
Another necessary and valid role that progressives often play is that of cultural critic. They look at history and see that certain beloved historical figures had a dark side or that certain groups were marginalized and should be brought into the conversation.
But a positive role conservatives should play is to counterbalance that by encouraging celebration of the area’s positive cultural heritage as well. The negative elements that progressives tend to point out are real, and should be part of the story, but they shouldn’t be the whole story. Before something is renamed, knocked down, or even just forgotten, conservatives may be able to reintroduce the person/place/thing to the community in a fresh way that leads to it being preserved.
If push back has to happen, it’s important to be there to give it. But, because we are generally outnumbered within municipalities, to be successful, conservatives should enter the conversations about their local Main Street with the goal of contributing and offering balance, not to engage in larger ideological battles.