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Anyone can sell. You don't need to have a fancy cart and shrink wrapped goods to sell things outside. Nor do you need training in business or public safety. Turns out that all you need is a drive way and some things you no longer need.

With a 20 year boom having come to an end, folks everywhere are looking for quick ways to earn some extra cash. Having gorged ourselves on consumer goods for years, people are now looking to unload them. As I told New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown, "This is the perfect storm for garage sales." Ms. Brown wrote an article about the garage sale boom that appeared in the New York Times on Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/25garage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=garage&st=cse&oref=slogin

Garage sales are another example of open air commerce. Such sales help demonstrate the virtues of selling things outside. Homeowners all over the country are avoiding middle men such as the pawn shop and second hand store and selling things themselves from their own property. The cost savings are passed on to thrifty consumers. It's a win-win for buyers and sellers alike.

Swapmeets, flea markets, street markets, yard sales, are all activities of a kind, what kind? The kind that produces income.

Since the country began, and prior to that in Europe, and elsewhere around the world, bazaars and markets have been at the core of social and economic life. Now more than ever they are important economic players. 100 years ago in the U.S. public markets, indoors and out, were called upon to socialize new immigrants, provide employment opportunities, and make consumer goods and even produce, accessible to low-income and isolated populations.

Today the situation is much the same, privately held or publicly controlled, this variety of trading venues is getting a real workout, employed by many to supplement their income or experiment with entrepreneurship. Some jurisdictions have taken to limit the number of yard sales a family can have, but to what purpose?

My colleague Gregg Kettles was cited in the NYT on this phenomena, and it is no surprise, his work, my work and the work of scholars all over the country make clear how sales on the street has never gone away, it has always been employed by people, more so now with the economic plight that so many face. Instead of regulating it away, jurisdictions should seek to cooperate with populations and make available venues for people to help keep themselves solvent.

As summer wanes we are reminded that many people have had their busiest time for earning income. Many people work two jobs, one paid and in the wage economy, but another where they work for themselves and they work hard in small scale street businesses catering to tourists and vacationers, or at periodic public markets selling items they create themselves or which they purchase at auction or by other means.

These self-employed entrepreneurs are often seasonal, as illustrated by this NYT story about people selling refreshments on the beach.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/nyregion/01hustle.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Notice the hard work and longevity involved. Certainly not all merchants are so long-lived. It is the case the these jobs are demanding and not always welcome. But some merchants only vend to tide them through a tough time or to fulfill a particular economic desire or need.

In these tough economic times we should expect even more of this honest hustle, in the face of often dishonest business dealings which leave so many with dire economic problems.

Recently the ACLU announced the settlement of a dispute involving day laborers in the Orange County, California community of Lake Forest. That community had attempted, with the assistance of county law enforcement, to drastically to limit the ability of day laborers to solicit work on public sidewalks. Day laborers there are right to be encouraged by the settlement of their lawsuit, but celebration may be premature. While the settlement affirms laborer’s 1st Amendment right to solicit work from sidewalks, it also leaves county defendants with full authority to enforce laws regulating conduct, including those prohibiting jaywalking, double parking, and littering.

It remains to be seen whether Lake Forest will attempt to find another way to exclude day laborers, such as by simply lengthening the list of laws “regulating conduct.” This has been a favorite tactic of other U.S. communities who are hostile to street side solicitation by day workers. The City of Orange earlier this year made it illegal to solicit for work from sidewalks next to streets without parking lanes, medians or driveways on a public right of way. Marietta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, put the squeeze on day labor employers, changing the traffic rules to prohibit stopping a vehicle where day laborers congregate. These tactics are of questionable legality. They are certainly bad policy.

My Markets and Food Systems class traveled to Milwaukee WI from Madison for this conference over the weekend of September 19-21. You can learn about it here:

https://www.growingfoodandjustice.org/Home_Page.html

The conference was useful in learning about the variety of ways farmer's markets are organized around the country.

One purpose of this webpage is to provide examples of market organization - feel free to post what you learn in your particular place. We will post examples of market organization from time to time.