num_pages: 352
description: Traverses the central thoroughfares of our cities to uncover the ways they bring together our communitiesHow do Main Streets contribute to our mental health? This intriguing question took social psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove on an 11-year search through 178 cities in 14 countries. As Andy Merrifield notes in the foreword Mindy has drifted through a lot of Main Streets walked them observed talked to people ordinary people as well as professional practitioners.While she got to pace many miles of New Yorks Broadway eat French patisseries as a flneuse in Gay Paree sip ay in Istanbul and chill in Kyotos dazzling Zen temples her real concern is Main Street USA the more modest main stems of provincial America. From these visits Fullilove has discerned the larger architecture of Main Streets. She observes the ways that Main Streets are shaped for a vast array of social gatherings and processes how they are a marker forthe integrity of civilizationand the marks arent always good. She also looks at Main Streets as an alle a way that is part drama and part quotidian. While passing through we get to look at one another to sing to recognize what we are have been might be. Her conclusion that Main Streets are essential for gathering people and sharing information emphasizes that tending our oft-neglected civic and commercial centers is a task worthy of us all.
language: English
title: Main Street: How a City's Heart Connects Us All
publisher: New Village Press