Now the vendors, after investing their savingS in the stalls and paying monthly rents (along with, some charge, substantial "key monies" to secure the lease), find themselves being evicted because of the irresponsible (and possibly ilegal) behavior of the management company, Century 21.
The city, in the meantime, washes its hands of the whole affair and claims that it is none of their business. After closing down other alternative areas for vendors in the neighborhood on the excuse that vendors could move to the market, they now claim that the market was an experiment that went wrong, and that they are not in the market business.
But if they are not in the market business, why did they allow a market there in the first place as an alternative to having stalls on the street? And if the experiment went wrong, why not try to fix it by arranging alternative forms of management?
The city was eady to tear down the market on February 19th, 1999, but the vendors obtained an injunction preventing the eviction to give the vendors time to move their belongings until March 1st. The vendors, with several allies they have found in the comunity including CAAAV and ARTIST, are trying to keep the market open, however, even though a park official clearly told reporters that the order allows them to shut the market down, so this may create some tension in the next few days. For now, the vendors are planning to bring back their equipment so that they can start selling from the market again, and there is a danger that the police might take action to prevent that.
My own analysis of the market suggests that it was indeed very badly managed. The stalls are far too large and unattractive, occupying two sides of a plaza, making them look more like shanty housing than street stalls. Business was aparently very slow because there was no pedestrian flow through the market, which could have been easily remedied by keeping the market open, rather than boxing in the plaza with the stalls themselves. Furthermore, the location of the stalls and their fixed nature makes cleaning the area a problem, which probably generated complaints from neighbors. Many of the stalls were unoccupied, particularly those in the middle, apparently because of the lack of traffic flow through the market.
I wil be following this story closely, so stay tuned for updates.
John C. Cross Author, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City, Stanford University Press, 1998.
Go to John Cross's INFORMAL CYBERSPACE
Go to OPENAIR MARKET NET