ita, Main Street, USA is a gestalt, not a place: it seems to mean different things to different people, but generally, I've found it's evocative of Small Town America where the picket fences are white, the flag blows above the post office, and All Is Well.

OK, maybe I wasn't clear on the "High street" concept. Sorry if I misled anyone.

You know, deb, I had no idea. I thought it was High Street.

We always had the thing growing up - "oh, we need a shoulder of lamb, someone ought to go down the shop on the high street and get it." Here, Main Street USA seems an honestly different thing, more a mythical idealisation of what America At Its Best Should Be.

Opinions? Anyone? I always mentally place Main Street as the place where "Happy Days" is supposed to take place, or all of "American Graffiti".

There's one at Disneyland...it's all big and wide, with pickets and a mercantile. Does that help? See also, Pleasantville.

Main Street, USA. Smalltown, USA. Right there in my head with Route 66, Burma Shave! billboards, American Graffiti....

I'm now completely fascinated by the different perceptions of High Street, Insert appropriate '-ich' township, UK, versus the high street in all small towns and quite a few London neighbourhoods, which is just the automatic "where they keep the shops." Even in London, there's Kensington High Street (just sort of southwesty from Ambassador's Row and Knightsbridge and all). You never say, I'm going down to have tea or buy a rude teeshirt on Kensington High Street; you say you're off to Ken high. It's just, where all the exhanging money for goods is kept in a given spot.

Pleasantville -- that's exactly what Deb's description evoked. Americana, and apple pie.

Yeah -- the H section of the London A to Z is huge, because there're so many High Streets. A street would be minding its own business, suddenly become high, sell stuff, and then come down.

Because I am an American this is making me picture greasy guys talking into grates saying "You get the first taste for free." Cause, the street gets high, right?

I think "high street"'s closest US equivalent would be something like "downtown" or "near the big shops." Main, to me, implies a specific street called main, and also possibly the Pleasantville concept.