Main Street Program Shares Expertise with Japan

Members of the Wisconsin Main Street staff in the Department of Commerce got an opportunity to share their experience working with Wisconsin's Main Street Communities over the last 20 years with some special guests from Japan in early December.

Dr. Hiroshi Yahagi, professor of Osaka City University, Mr. Shigeaki Mitsuhashi, president of CLC Company, Ltd. And Mr. Yasuyuki Fujii, Senior Consultant of Mizuha Information and Research Institute attended the New Executive Director Orientation December 5-6, 2007 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

The contingent's trip was sponsored by the Japanese Government to research solutions for its country's mid and small-sized communities where downtowns/Main Streets suffer from issues of suburbanization and consensus building among stakeholders.

"This was a great opportunity for the Wisconsin Main Street staff and our executive directors to learn about Japan and the challenges they face in revitalizing their downtowns," said Jim Engle, Wisconsin Main Street Coordinator. "It was nice to know that they face some of the same issues that we do."

Mr. Engle said that Mr. Fujii had contacted a member of the Wisconsin Main Street staff about meeting to talk about the program while they were in Madison. The staff was going to be conducting the training so they invited them to join the group in Fond du Lac."

Wisconsin Main Street offers an intensive two-day training for new executive directors in active Main Street Communities that teach them the Main Street Four- Point Approach TM and other skills that they need to be effective in their role.

While the group from Japan was in Wisconsin, they meet with the University of Wisconsin- Extension's Center for Community and Economic Development. Afterwards they visited San Francisco, California to learn from their revitalization efforts. Prior to coming to Wisconsin, they met with staff managing the Warehouse district in Cleveland, Ohio.

"We enjoyed exchanging views on revitalizing downtowns with the state staff as well as the executive directors who attended the session," said Mr. Fujii. "The staff was very helpful and provided us lots of good information on their basis of working with communities for the last 20 years."

Prior to coming to Wisconsin in December, Mr. Fujii said that he researched different state programs from the National Main Street Center's website and found that Wisconsin had an active and viable program. Also the partnership the program has with the UW-Extension to help communities do their market analysis was another factor in choosing this state.

"After attending the training session, we realized that we came to the right place," said Mr. Fujii.

During the exchange in information some of the common issues Japan's and Wisconsin's downtowns face are big box retailers coming in and hurting the independent retailer and the shift in people moving to the suburbs. One of the differences that the group noticed was the definition of a small community. In Japan, one is considered small if they have a population below 100,000 people, which is quite different in Wisconsin. Only a small portion of the land is habitable which creates the larger communities. All of the communities represented at the training were well below this level, the largest was Fond du Lac and the smallest was Rhinelander.

Mr. Fujii showed the group photos of a typical downtown/Main Street area looks like in Japan.

The training was also attended by the Kansas Main Street Assistant Coordinator and the new officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation Wisconsin Field office.

-- Barbro McGinn