Main Streets that are still the retail core of their communities (steady state) are compared to those in decline or rehabilitated through preservation. Main Street as Old Growth Forest uses analogies from the environmental, conservation and ecology movements to describe the value of our rapidly disappearing Main Streets with regard to their types, states, complexity, diversity, and other attributes.

Catherine Nasmith is a practicing architect; president of the ACO Toronto Branch; Jane Jacobs prize winner (2010) and publisher of Built Heritage News. She has been observing Main Streets since the 1980’s.