| In many cases, Main Street serves a potentially conflicting dual role in being the community's main commercial district as well as a provincial transportation through fare. The formalization of the Context-Sensitive Solutions philosophy has revolutionized the way professionals think about transportation corridors, thus allowing the opportunity for its application on rural downtown main streets. The research focuses on exploring downtown in rural southern Ontario, downtown renewal, and the dynamic of the streetscape. Semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted with eight professionals directly involved in at least one downtown renewal project in rural southern Ontario. This study compared the treatments of main street in renewal in rural downtown southern Ontario (pop<20,000) based on a framework derived from the Context-Sensitive Solutions philosophy, and performance evaluation standards. This research positions the landscape architect to lead these projects, achieve more context-sensitive rural downtown streetscapes, and reveals the importance of economic development as a driver for streetscape renewal. The checklist tool that was generated informs context-sensitivity in rural downtown streetscape renewal projects. |
