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Asset Mapping

By February 12, 2026March 26th, 2026Main Street RI

Asset Mapping: How to Identify Economic Development Assets in Your Main Street

March 5, 2026
12-1PM: ZOOM

The recording of this Roundtable is not being shared due to our use of breakout rooms.

Featuring: Miriam Parson, Main Street America Director of Network Capacity Building, Launch

Asset mapping focuses your economic development strategy on what makes your place unique to both residents and visitors.
Assets are what we want to keep, build upon, and sustain for future generations. They can be physical things, like historic buildings or a local park, or cultural assets like a festival or an intergenerational social club.
Join us to learn the Whole Assets Approach with Main Street America*. Leave with your own asset map to continue developing with stakeholders back home.

Mapping Your Main Street District’s Assets

Asset mapping has been used as a community development tool for many different purposes and there are several different approaches. This post explores the use of asset mapping in a Main Street context.

If your goal for your commercial district, village center or downtown is to be economically and socially vibrant, you’re going to need a plan that can be implemented by a group of people over time. While it’s often our inclination to start making that plan by identifying what is needed, what’s missing, or what’s wrong, a better approach is to start with everything that your district does have and then identify the gaps. Doing so leads to better results because when we start with the unique qualities of a particular community, we end up with a plan that builds on what is special and not what might already exist elsewhere.

What is an Asset Map? 

Assets are what we want to keep, build upon, and sustain for future generations. When identifying a Main Street district’s assets, consider all aspects of place, including the physical elements as well as people, organizations, programs, traditions, systems, and stories.

The end result of an asset mapping process might be an actual map (or several!) but more likely it is a collection of documents that together describe all of the strengths of a place and its community. It can be summarized in a written report and it can include one or more lists, maps, charts, graphs, pictures, links, drawings, or other methods of sharing information. 

It can be very simple, especially when just starting out. You can always keep a list of what is unknown or what data or information you want to find or research. 

One example of a comprehensive asset mapping report from a Main Street District is from the Heart of Ellsworth (Maine.)

However, a report is only a snapshot in time and as a district grows and changes the assets will change as well. Communities should be keeping track of these changing assets, conducting periodic assessments and updates.

What Are You Looking For?

Your reasons for undertaking an asset mapping process will determine what assets you want to identify. For a Main Street District, we are looking for the assets that will lead to the development of all four points of the Main Street Approach (Design, Economic Vitality, Promotion, and Organization) so you can organize your process around those categories. It will also be useful to identify assets that might not be within your district’s boundaries but are nearby and thus impact your district (such as a state park, major employer, etc.)

Main Street Assets in 4 Points

This should include natural assets (river, parks) as well as buildings (historic, significant, beautiful) and other features of the built environment (accessibility, sidewalks.)
Which businesses in the district are anchors or have been there a long time? Where are the clusters? What’s most popular? Where are the opportunities for entrepreneurs?
Are there festivals or events? Is the history of the area well known or interesting? Are there stories of past or current residents? What methods are already being used to market the place and the businesses?
Who lives, works and visits here? What groups already exist? Is there a strong base of volunteers? What systems are in place to get people involved and communicating with one another?

Who Participates in an Asset Mapping Process?

An inclusive approach that actively recruits participation from an entire community is going to result in a more complete asset map. Often it will take extensive outreach to get to everyone, but drawing on the lived experiences and diverse perspectives of those who live, work, and spend time in your community will offer insights that data alone can’t capture. Long time residents and business owners can describe how the district has changed over time and those newer to a community might have fresh perspectives on which spaces and opportunities have been overlooked.

Stakeholders you might want include are:

  • Residents (long time and new, of all ages and backgrounds)
  • Business and property owners
  • Municipal leaders, staff, and boards/commissions (current and former)
  • Arts and cultural groups, clubs
  • Religious and educational institutions, including libraries

How Do You Do It?

A variety of methods can be used to collect ideas from your community.

  • Community meetings/workshops
  • Online or paper surveys or asked in person
  • Walk audits
  • Focus groups
  • As a guest speaker at existing meetings
  • 1-on-1 conversations
  • Review of media or other “literature”

A comprehensive process likely involves multiple occurrences of several of these methods, but you can get started with just one! 

Community Asset Mapping Workshop Guide

What Asset Mapping can do for your Main Street District

Asset Mapping Can:

Asset mapping helps communities clarify local priorities, informing municipal planning and zoning efforts and ensuring that commercial development and retail leasing reflect actual community needs—not just market trends.
Asset mapping supports creative placemaking by identifying the unique elements of a community that can be woven into redevelopment efforts to strengthen a sense of place.
Communities seeking to enhance open space and public land can use asset mapping to identify and leverage public resources—such as underused waterfronts, easements, parks, and plazas—transforming them into active community spaces.
A main street is nothing without its people, and identifying the sometimes overlooked strengths of Main Street leaders can be key to mobilizing positive community change
Mapping can support environmental resilience with an eye towards a community’s natural resources such as tree canopies etc.

Best Practices for Asset Mapping Your Main Street

Be Sure To:

A strong asset map goes way beyond the listing of physical things. As part of your process, examine community behavior, use and experience. Ask: Where do people gather and connect – and why? Where do people linger vs. just pass through? What feels welcoming? What doesn’t? Why? Which businesses or institutions serve as anchors? What local knowledge or networks are we overlooking?
A café isn’t just an asset—it’s connected to: foot traffic patterns, nearby businesses, transit stops and social routines. Encourage participants to identify clusters (where activity concentrates), gaps (where nothing happens) and connections (what supports what). This is where real insight emerges.
Many maps over-focus on easily identifiable physical things, but often the most important assets on a Main Street are the easiest to miss. Push your participants to name: Trusted business owners and community connectors Informal gathering spots Recurring events
A park is not automatically an asset. Ask: Is it used? By whom? At what times? Why or why not? These are critical questions to consider as many assets are underperforming.
A productive mapping exercise should go beyond the present assets of your community and dig deeper for what’s missing. Consider: what is your main street not offering that causes people to leave in search of elsewhere? What do people wish existed? What is almost but not quite working? Identifying these gaps can lead to finding your most actionable insights.

From Insight to Action

Asset mapping is most powerful when it leads to action on your Main Street, such as:

  • Identifying clusters of activity and reinforcing them through programming or design
  • Supporting existing businesses that play key community roles
  • Improving connections between assets (like linking transit stops to retail areas)
  • Filling gaps where “missing assets” have been identified
  • Using maps and community input to inform policy, funding, or development decisions

Visual tools—maps, databases, or even simple guides—can help communicate these insights to local officials, funders, and partners. They make a compelling case: this is not a place defined by need alone, but by opportunity.

See It. Map It. Build From It.

Your Main Street doesn’t need to be reinvented—it just needs to be recognized. By mapping what’s already working, your community can make smarter decisions, invest more effectively, and build on its existing strengths to shape what comes next.

We’ve collected some resources that we hope will help you along your Main Street asset mapping journey, and plan to add to these resources as we learn more.

*Main Street America leads a movement committed to strengthening communities through preservation-based economic development in older and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. For more than 40 years, Main Street America has provided a practical, adaptable, and impactful framework for community-driven, comprehensive revitalization through the Main Street Approach™. Our network of more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities, rural and urban, share both a commitment to place and to building stronger communities through preservation-based economic development. Since 1980, communities participating in the program have generated more than $107.62 billion in new public and private investment, generated 175,323 net new businesses and 782,059 net new jobs, rehabilitated more than 335,675 buildings, and levered over 35.3 million volunteer hours. Main Street America is a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For more information, visit mainstreet.org.
Main Street Rhode Island is a Coordinating Program of Main Street America.
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