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Manage for Change <br />Plan for the long term, but manage for constant change in the short term. <br />Rebuilding a neighborhood retail street is a long reinvestment process, and <br />market realities will undoubtedly continue to change throughout the ongoing <br />Life of the street. If the champion, the city, or the property owners are not pre- <br />pared to support this dynamic in perpetuity —with both their efforts and their <br />money —the revitalization project should not be undertaken. One-shot projects <br />will fail, following a formula will faiL, operating on autopilot will fail, and lock- <br />ing a street into an unchanging reality will fail. as well. These truisms need to be <br />recognized up front. <br />Rebuilding neighborhood retail should be planned comprehensively as an inte- <br />gral piece of the Larger community that surrounds it, and it should be taiLored to <br />the realities of the area. Communities should focus their initial efforts on care- <br />fully chosen development nodes to maximize the impact of their efforts, create <br />momentum, and foster faith in the project. As more resources become availabLe, <br />the focus should expand to neighboring blocks and streets. Individual strategies <br />will vary widely because every street is different —each has its own set of prob- <br />lems and opportunities, each has a unique identity that can be capitalized on, <br />and each will evolve over time as entrepreneurship grows. What usually begins <br />Clematis Street, West <br />Palm Beach, Florida. <br />22 <br />