Two Sides of Main Street: South Carolina’s capitol blocks an artery.  One side gets gangrene.

In some respects, it’s a tale of two streets.  But since it’s actually one y-axis on the grid that comprises downtown Columbia, South Carolina, it’s not so much two main streets as an age-old distinction between north and south: two sides of Main Street.  The north side of Main protrudes from one direction of the South Carolina State House, and, unsurprisingly, the south side of Main radiates the other direction.  The State House forms the great divide that severs the street’s continuity.  I’ve illustrated these on the map cutout to the right, referencing the State House with a star; the active commercial core of the north side of Main with a dashed green line; the south side of Main with dashed red.  But take note that I haven’t used the terms “North Main” and “South Main”.  The whole thing is just “Main Street”.* 

I’ve featured the north side of Main (at least tangentially) from a summer article that explored the artificial façades that property owners installed on some of the 19th century buildings back in the 1950s and 60s, endowing them with a quasi-modern veneer that didn’t always age well.  (Granted, they didn’t always age badly either.)  All things considered, the north side of Main offers one of the most aesthetic commercial main streets of medium-sized American cities that I can recall.   Aesthetics are always deeply subjective, but, of the two sides of Main Street, I can’t fault the design and configuration of the north side of Main.  From the viewpoint of this trained planner, everything holds together amazingly well in the blocks that comprise the heart of the corridor, indicated by that dashed green line.

What are the elements that stand out the most on this north side of Main?  First, it remains resolutely two-way, and it only offers one lane of vehicular traffic in each direction.  So the road isn’t uninvitingly wide, nor does its width encourage high speeds.  Supplementing this attractive scale are both the boldly visible crossings at each intersection and the lush canopy of mature trees well-suited to South Carolina’s humid subtropical climate.

These pictures come from sweltering August, but I suspect the north side of Main Street remains fairly green even in January.  The trees extend over both the street and the generously wide sidewalks, offering much needed shade or an organic umbrella for those predictably rainy summer afternoons.  Next, the on-street parking is generous: this angled configuration offers more than if the spaces were designed directly parallel to the curb.

And while I’ll concede that angled parking allows drivers to zip in and out of spaces more hastily and carelessly than parallel parking (which requires precision and dedication), it doesn’t overwhelm the road even as it consumes more surface area than parallel spaces.  More people get to park directly off of Main Street, incentivizing them to seek on-street parking rather than a garage or off-street surface lot.  The street could probably benefit from some better bike provisions, but at least it has the signature “sharrows” that signal a shared, equal use between cars and bicycles—something that should be easy to achieve here because everything else encourages slow vehicle speeds.  After all, if the design allowed parallel parking spaces that tightly hugged the curb, the city’s Public Works could have restriped to accommodate four lanes (two in each direction) which would have invariably fostered a more auto-dominant character.  Instead, the north side of Main gets one lane in each direction, which is a striking contrast with most of downtown Columbia’s streets, including the mammoth Assembly Street one block to the west.

Yuck. Returning to Main Street, complementing its scale are the buildings themselves, which either date from the mid 19th century as Columbia was growing its industrial base, or they constitute smartly conceived infill that harmonizes with those historic buildings.

Not all of them have amazingly ornamented façades, but I already covered that issue in the previously cited article.

The fact remains that the six blocks that I highlighted on this north side of Main feature almost entirely buildings with storefronts that address the sidewalk, or plazas that offer shaded reprieves for pedestrians.  Virtually no surface parking lots—certainly none that are prominent from views on this side of Main Street.

The engaged streetscape has helped foster a reasonably active entertainment district with restaurants, bars, arts venues, a little retail, and hotels.  Outdoor dining complements the lush canopy, and even on a sweltering Friday afternoon, a local street musician witnessed enough passersby to try his game.  Columbia’s primary historic commercial corridor is not thriving on the par of the trendiest quarters of Charleston (South Carolina’s most historic and tourist-driven city), but, of the two sides of Main Street, it gives this north side pedestrianized energy and pictorial interest, at least for five blocks and part of a sixth.

The northernmost block of the historic corridor, between Blanding and Laurel streets, reveals a degradation of that otherwise almost perfect main street character.

Peering northward along Main at its intersection with Blanding, the right side of the street continues the two- and three-story historic streetscape.  But the energy of the retail and tree canopy drop off considerably.

(And yes, I realized, ex post facto, that I violated the 180-degree rule of filming by placing the old main street buildings on the right side of the photo’s frame, then the left. Sorry about that.) A few fledgling pubs try their luck, but most of the historic buildings have their curtains drawn tight.  They feature office space and professional services, often law firms or bail bonding storefronts.  Not exactly inspiring, but there’s a reason for it. On the opposite corner of Main and Blanding, occupying a massive parcel where I can only imagine a cluster of 19th century buildings once stood, is an austere, brutalist leviathan: the Richland County Judicial Building.

No doubt this structure replaced a more attractive Italianate courthouse around 1970, fulfilling both the era’s standard for security (it is mostly windowless at street level) and streamlined design.  But it offers abysmal engagement with the sidewalk and, as is often the case, grouping so many judicial services under one roof prompts complimentary spinoff tenants nearby.  Thus, this stretch of downtown serves a primary function of addressing legal representation or bond-posting needs for those recent arrestees—or their family members.  It’s a function that every city needs, but it’s a shame it had to sacrifice what I am confident was once a much more attractive walkable retail block.

Continuing northward on this side of Main Street leads to the outskirts of downtown, quickly transforming into a landscape both more residential and more automobile oriented.  North of Laurel Street, the Main Street widens to four or even five lanes of traffic; the walkable character is gone.  But at least five blocks are pretty great.  But, regarding the two sides of Main Street as separate but equal counterparts, what happens on the other side of the South Carolina State House?

The north side of Main Street terminates at Gervais Street, offering vistas of the immaculately landscaped grounds of the Palmetto State’s executive branch.  

Circling around the capital gardens, the southbound view, from the top of the steps of the southern entrance to the state house, is just as verdant.

The south side of Main is barely visible through the allée of trees in the center of this panorama photo.  If one makes an aesthetic judgment on the two sides of Main Street from this statehouse perch, they both appear verdant and replete with older commercial buildings.

But is that really the case?  Climbing down those many stairs and continuing southward to where the south side of Main resumes its trajectory southward from its start point at Pendleton Street, the appearance is starkly different.

A ramp leading to an underground parking garage obscures the majority of the State House, with only the dome and cupola peeping out above the trees.  Not exactly a postcard view.  Pivoting around Main and Pendleton, the visuals aren’t bad necessarily, but they’re hardly memorable.

It’s understandable that, among the two sides of Main Street, this side doesn’t feature prominently in downtown maps.  The absence of a tree canopy is merely the most obvious deficiency.  But the well-preserved nineteenth century commercial buildings are in short supply as well.  And, given the low density of built structures, the concentration of permanently operating businesses—retail, restaurants, bars, or even law and accounting firms—is middling.

This first block of the south side of Main could certainly be worse.  It hosts a few older structures that directly engage the sidewalk.  At the time of my visit, at least one of them hosted a few local businesses with the kind of eclectic naming that screams “local”.   But the positioning of these older buildings is too sparse to constitute a coherent street wall or to elicit pedestrian interest.  Incidentally, between the two sides of Main Street, the south side has an intrinsic generator of pedestrianism that seems to be failing: it stands just a block away from the leafy quadrilateral core of University of South Carolina (nicknamed “The Horseshoe”), and, as this side of Main Street continues southward, academic buildings flank it.

But the high quantities of student pedestrians during the academic year have not transformed the south side of Main Street into a thriving corridor.  The buildings themselves are often austere and fortress-like, and the interstices consist of little more than parking lots.  Here’s a typical view at the start of the school year (September 2025, which is more recent than my visit).  And here’s a streetscape view a block further south, where, at the very least, a few student-serving restaurants sit at one corner.  But they’re in a strip mall with parking out front, showing no attention to aesthetics or pedestrian-centered commercial structures.  Continuing southward, the street widens to four lanes and the academic buildings continue to loom over the street, offering student entrances from the sidewalk but otherwise resembling an office park more than a 200-year-old campus.  A few mixed-use structures—condos over first-floor retail—have sprung up in recent years, which undoubtedly improve density and offer some streetscape retail engagement.  But hulking apartment buildings rarely confer an aesthetic advantage that many retail tenants seek.  The residential density is helpful, but it still lacks any of the sense of proportionality that Allan Jacobs prescribed in his 1995 book Great Streets.  The south side of Main continues with a few more blocks of academic and residential structures, then peters off into weed-filled vacant lots. 

When comparing the two sides of Main Street, the south side does offer one streetscape improvement that is, by most metrics, superior to the north side:

The narrow paved path painted olive green is one segment in a cycle track, the maximum amount of protection afforded to bicyclists, since it constitutes and exclusive, grade-separated lane, protecting them from vehicles (both moving and parallel parked) while offering a distinctive visual contrast that should impel pedestrians to stay on their conventionally colored portion of the sidewalk—and off the bike lane.  The cycle track is a recent installation and reflective of a road diet: prior to 2023, the three blocks of this side of Main Street deployed five travel lanes: two in each direction and a left turn lane, a scale reflective of minor arterial or major collector that favors cars over people.  Despite running right through a pedestrian-rich university campus, the south side of Main was the definition of a stroad: prioritizing vehicles at higher-than-average speeds like a country “road” but traveling through a mixed use urban area with frequent intersections like a “street”.  The Columbia Department of Public works sliced away at all but two lanes, allowing generous sidewalks, landscaping, green infrastructure, and on-street parking.  And, with those cycle tracks, the two sides of Main street both acknowledge bicyclists, but, compared to the north side’s “sharrows”, the south side is superior and safer—at least for the three blocks that benefitted from this road diet.

The positioning of the South Carolina State House squarely in the middle of Main Street results in two prominent downtown roads with a terminative viewpoint right at the city’s (and state’s) landmark center of governance.  It’s a common urban design strategy, most famously deployed in the US through trailblazing urban architect Pierre l’Enfant, whose original plan for the Federal City on the Potomac involved broad diagonal avenues that terminated and bold neoclassical civic buildings: US Capitol, Library of Congress, Supreme Court Building, White House, and (a bit later) Union Station, National Portrait Gallery, the District Courthouse.  Columbia, South Carolina achieved its initial town charter in 1805, about the time of completion for the Federal City’s earliest construction, and US Congress was completing its first session in its new home.  But the initial planned design of the former Carolina colony’s capital took place almost concurrent with the 1790 Residence Act, which approved the founding of an inland capital along the Potomac River.  Columbia and District of Columbia sprung up almost simultaneously, and deploy similar urban design tactics.

The two sides of Main Street have existed since Columbia’s initial platting as an early planned city: a north and a south side.  While I suspect the south side of Main offered a greater presence of commercial buildings in the distant past, it was never the primary business corridor.  That honor went to the north side of Main, which remains the spine of the city to this day, even as it extends far northward as a major arterial and highway (US 21), ultimately linking Columbia to Charlotte.  Meanwhile, the south side of Main was more of an afterthought, hosting a minor commercial presence and serving as a supporting road to the University of South Carolina campus, which eventually engulfed the south side Main Street as the growing school expanded its footprint westward.

The City of Columbia’s Department of Public Works engaged in probably the heaviest investment the south side of Main has received in a century, endowing it with great bike provisions, pedestrian friendly sidewalks, and attractive rain gardens to manage stormwater.  In some respects, this investment undoubtedly “primes the pump” to replicate the scale that makes the north side of Main so attractive.  It lacks trees, plazas, benches, consistent historic buildings, or anything else that gives the north side of Main its magnetism.  But at least it’s a start.  It may prompt better construction in the future, catering to the captive student population.  Then again, it may sit in limbo for another fifty years.  The demand for perfectly scaled main street corridors isn’t sufficiently great, especially in relatively small cities like Columbia (population 145,000 in 2024).  On the two sides of Main Street, is there really the intrinsic demand for blocks upon blocks of walkable retail and commercial buildings, amidst competition from suburbia, malls, and online shopping?  The viability of these investments remains to be seen, but at least the aesthetic gap between north and south seems to be narrowing—a gap that was wide mostly because the north side of Main was so perfect.

Well, five blocks of it, at any rate.

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* Unlike most state capitals that use a prominent landmark downtown as the zero block that gives rise to road prefixes “North” and “South” (or “East” and “West”), Columbia deploys the otherwise unremarkable, local road Heyward Street about a mile south of the State House as the axis by which to set the zeros for address numbers.  Roads that continue south of Heyward get the “South” Prefix: e.g., South Sumter, South Evans, South Bull.  But Columbia’s Main Street doesn’t extend all the way to Heyward, so it’s just “Main”.