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The Main Street Program, originally developed by the US National Trust for Historic Preservation, was one of the latest initiatives taken by the City of London to revitalize its downtown area. During the last five years, the City of London had put an array of incentive programs in place aiming at building a more vibrant business and residential community, but with few results. In 1999, London was the first city in Canada to adopt the Main Street Program, with its four-point approach of design, organization, promotion and economic restructuring. The policy planning administrator for the City of London had recently been named the interim manager and was trying to decide on several issues regarding London''s Main Street Program. First, he had to recruit a permanent manager for Main Street and form an effective organizational infrastructure including paid and volunteer staff, with active representation from both the private and public sectors. Second, he needed to begin the process of deciding where to focus the program''s limited resources to build momentum and how to measure its success with elected officials, community groups, concerned citizens and business owners.