Music on Main: Supporting a Tangle of Main Streets during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Main streets are an amalgam of civic, commercial, and public spaces that serve as urban places of connection and exchange. Many factors have undermined the commercial functions of main street, but the Covid-19 pandemic has been a particularly severe stressor. This paper describes the manner in which the University of Orange Music City team planned festivals to support their local main streets during the pandemic. Drawing on the authors' previously developed box-circle-line-tangle model of main street social function, this paper uses the example of the Music City Festival to underscore how careful a ention to the tangle of main streets can stimulate new thinking and action in support of these crucial centres.