DeLand 
DeLand's downtown didn't survive the age of the shopping mall by accident — it survived because the community organized to save it. When Florida launched its Main Street program in 1985, DeLand was among the very first five communities designated, betting early on preservation-based economic development at a time when many small-town cores were emptying out.
The bet paid off spectacularly. In 1997 the National Trust for Historic Preservation named DeLand a recipient of the Great American Main Street Award — the first such honor in the state of Florida. Two decades later, in 2017, MainStreet DeLand won the national "America's Main Streets" contest, making DeLand the only community in the country to have claimed both of those distinctions.
Today the MainStreet DeLand Association operates as an accredited Main Street America program, part of a national network of more than 1,200 neighborhoods committed to building stronger communities through the careful stewardship of historic places. The result is a downtown of restored brick storefronts, independent shops, galleries, and restaurants — living proof that the Athens of Florida's civic pride is not just history, but a working strategy.