So what has "four points," and "eight principles," and results in a better, more harmonious life? No, silly, it's not Buddhism—it's the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Streets program, which announced partnerships this morning to fix up the Alberta, Hillsdale and St. Johns neighborhoods according to said noble precepts.

To qualify, each neighborhood had to raise $30,000 in "community support" funding: begging for alms, if you will. Having passed that test, they'll now get "considerable financial and technical assistance and extensive training" to fix up their neighborhoods to conform to a utopian downtown ideal.

Much of the money raised came from the City of Portland's General Fund, and the projects will contribute to the Portland Economic Development Strategy and the plan for "20-minute neighborhoods" that Mayor Sam Adams has been touting extensively.

Aside from the "four points" (organization, promotion, design, and economic restructuring), the "Main Streets" program is strangely big-brothery. On this PDC page, the city refers to the program as "Main Street®," with the little "R" sign.

A closer look reveals that the National Trust has extensive guidelines for use of the "Main Street" term, and has in fact registered it as a trademark. Read their policy on the use of the name "Main Street" for more:

The National Trust for Historic Preservation owns the trademark for the phrase "Main Street" as it applies to the revitalization of traditional and historic commercial districts. The Trust allows local, regional, state, and citywide organizations involved in the revitalization of these commercial districts to use the name "Main Street" to describe their programs, according to the guidelines.

Congratulations and namaste to Alberta®, Hillsdale®, and St. Johns®.

Update 3:47 pm: More details on the program from Sam's office after the jump.

Skip Newberry, the mayor's adviser on economic development policy, says that the Main Streets plan is meant to be a long-term guiding system for improvements to the individual neighborhoods. The four points actually mean something real: for example, the "organization" point already occurred when the neighborhood committees got their materials in order for the National Trust to review. The "promotion" point will involve branding neighborhoods with unique identities (®). "Design" will be plantings, streetlights, and the like.

"There are already some ideas in terms of individual plans," says Newberry. "We'll see mapping of what will happen in the short term once the neighborhoods work to hire an actual coordinator for each district."

That job is called the Main Street Manager, and is usually filled through an open hire. That hire is the main priority over the next year, along with other preliminary tasks that will use up that initial $30,000. "National Trust demonstrated that it's typically in year three that we see real improvements on the part of districts," says Newberry.