Mascoutah Illinois’ Mainstreet is A Good Example of Small Town Urbanism
On my second Podcast I mentioned how Main Street in Mascoutah IL is narrow but interesting. A number of people asked for pictures. As it happens, I had to go through Mascoutah today on the way to a Bicycle Fun Club ride in nearby St. Libory IL.
The street is narrow with on-street parking only on the North side of the street. Over the years many parking lots have been built which takes away from the line of buildings. A number of storefronts have been converted to residential uses. As this street is returning to commerce I expect these will eventually return to use as storefronts.
As you will see, what works in a small town may not work in the city.
The galvanized metal building above is, I’m told, to be razed. I think this is a shame as it is such an interesting structure. It is visible from Main Street and is adjacent to the red brick structure at left.
I took pictures of the very charming housing in Mascoutah, these will be posted later this week.
– Steve
Sunny day, bright blue cloudless sky, and not a single pedestrian on the streets in any of those photos. I’d say that for whatever reason, whether the local economy or demographics or what, the “small-town urbanism” is not working out so well.
[To be fair this was a Sunday at Church time. I think the nice weather had people out doing other things as well. However, the hardware store was open on a Sunday – that amazed me. I saw a few people coming and going but I just didn’t catch them in the photos. – Steve]
By the way, while the building placement may be done well, the sidewalks are extremely unappealing from a walking perspective – no landscaping and no screening or barrier between the sidewalk and the road.
[I agree on the lack of screening/barrier. This is something I usually insist on having mostly in the form of street trees. However, walking the sidewalks here seemed OK to me. Somehow the scale and pace of the area made it tolerable. – Steve]
Is it my computer? I can see only a couple of complete images. The rest are kinda scrambled, as though they’d been tossed into a pile. Is anyone else experiencing this problem?
[I’ve fixed the problem now so hit refresh. I was trying something new and it didn’t work. – Steve]