Great Quotes Relating To Open Air Markets

A project of OPENAIR-MARKET NET - email us with your own additions: mar@interaccess.com

1. A good start for making a town's acquaintance is to visit its morning markets, and I do not mean market halls but the temporary kind that consists of collapsible stalls put up for a few hours in a street or a square. Disagreeable as shopping in inclement weather may be to people addicted to the indoors, open-air markets are more than a match for hermetic stores. There is nothing like fresh air and daylight; the knowledgeable shopper prefers the least tidy street market to the air-conditioned morgue of a supermarket.

- Bernard Rudofsky (Streets for People: A Primer for Americans. New York: Doubleday, 1969. p. 201).

2. In countries with a respectable architectural past, daily markets are usually located in a towns most sumptuous section. They are the hub of human activity, breathing none of the funeral atmosphere of latter-day civic centers.

- Bernard Rudofsky (Streets for People: A Primer for Americans. New York: Doubleday, 1969. p. 207).

3. The Open-Air Market ... It is in a place where it is like summer all the year around.

- Jane Miller (To Market We Go - 1st Grade Reader. Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1935. p. 41).

4. First, the economic success of markets rest primarily on their location and their environmental quality. That quality is defined by 'vibrancy', colour, hygiene, and the spatial experiences of users. It is not necessarily related to the level or type of infrastructure. Indeed, some of the least successful markets found in Asia occur in extremely expensive, highly serviced, formal market buildings.

- David Dewar and Vanessa Watson (Urban Markets: Developing Informal Retailing. London: Routledge. 1990. p.54).

5. While wealthier people generally have access to private transport and can easily satisfy their shopping needs, poorer people are usually confined in their consumer behaviour to their local areas. For poorer people, access (by foot) to the range of basic and often cheaper products provided by a market can significantly improve the quality of their lives.

- David Dewar and Vanessa Watson (Urban Markets: Developing Informal Retailing. London: Routledge. 1990. p. 27).

6. For many people market shopping is not an opportunity for bargains but the realization of a romanticized view of one facet of their cultural past. The simple respite from cellophane is enheartening.

- Jack Pasternak (The Kitchener Market Fight. Toronto: Samuel Stevens, Hakkert & Co..1975. p. 26).

7. They could be gorged with any combination of apple butter, schmearkase, schnitz, colby cheese, lettuce, plums, eggplant, granola, shoofly pie, goose liver, halvah, radishes, poppy seed coffee cake, kochkase und kimmel, schwadamahga sausage, bread, or maple sugar fragments. Not only were the baskets replete, but each week the sensory experience of the sights, smells, and sounds of the market would stimulate afresh the "unurbanized" segements of one's consciousness.

- Jack Pasternak (The Kitchener Market Fight. Toronto: Samuel Stevens, Hakkert & Co..1975. p. 27).

8. The social ecology consisted of the independence of many people in the market area. Old people depended on farmers for some of their food. Farmers relied upon shoppers to help retain an agricultural way of life. Children learned, through exposure to different kinds of people at the market, useful lessons about life and society.

- Philip Langdon, et.al. (Urban Excellence. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1990. p. 23).

9. At Pike Place, people take pleasure in a relatively humble architecture that connects them to the past and provides plenty of opportunity for social interaction. ... A market can offer the prospect of racial, ethnic, and economic integration-better, probably, than any other part of a city. Cities can benefit from such strong, humane, functional focal points.

- Philip Langdon, et.al. (Urban Excellence. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1990. p. 62).

10. It is good, for instance, that the farmers and shops at Pike Place can serve multiple constituencies -- low-income city residents, gourmets, and restaurants among them. This enhances economic opportunities for farmers and independent local businesses. This is a worthy alternative to " festival markets" which cater to fewer needs and a narrower clientele and therefore offer less long-term satisfaction.

- Philip Langdon, et.al. (Urban Excellence. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1990. p. 62).

11. Open-air markets are essentially expressions of economic democracy where there is no latent fear of any single vendor dominating the market and forcing others out of business. Merchandise quality, service, price, etc. are the main factors determining survival and success, which is as it should be.

- Richard Leader (rleader@gv.net) in an e-mail to OPENAIR-MARKET NET, December 1995.

12. I have always thought that open-air markets serve a function similar to that of the Internet which is to give leverage to small producers.

- Sheila J. Siden (sjsmba@netcom.com) in an e-mail to OPENAIR-MARKET NET, January 6, 1995.

13. Potomac Mills and many other discount outlet centers have become so popular with foreign and American tourists that they are now bigger attractions than the Liberty Bell, the Jefferson Memorial, the Alamo, and many other traditional tourist treasures... many just want to shop, planning vacations solely around that passion. The Travel Industry Association of America recently said shopping was the most popular activity of vacationing Americans last year, and Mr. McMahon has an inkling of the reasons -- the only time many people have to shop, he said, is when they are on vacation.

- Edwin McDowell, New York Times, 5/26/96, p. 1 and 17.

14. Shoppers needn't feel guilty that they are not taking advantage of the cultural aspects of the city by spending their time shopping. Don't let anyone tell you that the two don't mix. In the bustling markets of Bangkok, shopping is definitely a cultural experience.

- Johan Bunger, of Sweden, from his 'Markets in Thailand Page"

15. A Farmers' Market is a delightful counterpoint to modern life, a little patch of green in an asphalt city, an oasis of sight and touch and smell in a climate-controlled, vacuum-sealed world. Having been eclipsed by the glamour of the supermarket some 50 years ago, farmers' markets are flourishing again... Direct contact is the lure of the farmers' market -- direct contact with the growers, with the produce and, if one is lucky, with one's appetite.

- Molly O'Neill, "Market Value", New York Times Magazine, June 9, 1996, p. 151.

16. Everybody loves them. When the market is on the street, crime is not. … It kicks the drug dealers out.

- Caroline Shoenberger, Chicago Commissioner of Consumer Services. quoted in "Farmers' markets reap fresh success across the nation." USA Today, August 23, 1996

17. Retail tourism, where shopping becomes the main if not the entire draw for travelers, is spreading across the globe - and reshaping tourism. … the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration found that 84% of international travelers to the U.S. rate shopping as their favorite travel activity. Domestic tourists rate shopping No. 2, behind eating.

- Scott McCartney, "In Guam, Shopping Sprees Are Replacing Tanning." Wall Street Journal, August 23, 1996, p. B4

18. By law, no more than 4,000 food and 1,700 merchandise vendors may operate on the streets of New York. Yet, the 18,000 currently working as vendors without permits testifies to the opportunity in this occupation. … overly restrictive laws force bootstrap entrepreneurs to operate underground. … All bootstrap capitalists need is the opportunity to earn an honest living. That is not too much to ask for in America.

- William H. Mellor (President of the Institute for Justice) , "No Jobs, No Work." New York Times, August 31, 1996, p. 19.

19. My feeling is that in terms of microenterprise, economic stability, and, also, overall mental health in so many intangible ways, markets make a tremendous difference.

- Naomi Holloway (starcrow@olympus.net) in an e-mail to OPENAIR-MARKET NET, November 1996. She is also the author of "A Case for a Mothers' Wage."

20. The fact that everyone at the flea market, black and white, rich and poor, benefits from being there is a powerful incentive for people to forget their differences and get along. In the process, racial tensions are reduced, as a wide variety of people are able to observe each other close up and see how foolish stereotypes and hatred are.

- David Bernstein (student, Yale Law School) from his essay Racial Tensions: The Market Is the Solution, in the The Freeman, July 1989, found at their website.

21. About three-quarters of the world's poorest people live in rural areas, dependent on agricultural activities for their livelihoods. For these people pro-poor growth means raising agricultural productivity and incomes. Key priorities include: Creating an enabling environment for small-scale agriculture, microenterprises and the informal sector. These are the sectors on which most poor people depend for their livelihoods. They also contribute to growth, since they generate incomes and employment at low cost, with few imported inputs and low management requirements.

- from Overview of the 1997 Human Development Report. United Nations Development Programme

22. The number of farmers markets in the United States has grown from 1,755 in 1994 to more than 2,400 today, according to the Agriculture Department. … Farmers markets around the country did some $1 billion in business last year. - Curt Anderson, The Associated Press (Washington), 10-18-97

23. For many farmers, the growth of these markets nationwide means a new source of income that might enable them to hold onto their land. In areas close to cities where pressure from development is gobbling up vast tracts, the urban farmers market is seen as saving a way of life. …Beyond saving farmland, the urban farmers market brings city consumers a greater awareness of how their food is produced and who the nation's farmers are. Only about 2 percent of the U.S. population makes a living from agriculture. …Farmers say there is a great need for more market outlets closer to home. Felder Freeman, who made the trip to Washington this week from Florence, S.C., said every 100 miles of travel cuts out 10 percent of his profit. ``Our biggest challenge is getting here, but once we get here, we have a steady stream of customers,'' Freeman said.

- Curt Anderson, The Associated Press (Washington), 10-18-97

24. At the Daowai wholesale market here, where shopkeepers come to buy food and consumer items from open-air stalls, it seems as though almost everyone -- the woman selling pig intestines for use as sausage skins, the man who pedals goods on a three-wheeled cycle, the woman running a corner noodle shop -- has been laid off by state-owned companies in the last couple of years. They are not starving, but they have become resigned to vastly different lives than the proudly secure ones they lost. … In the rural areas where a majority of China's 1.2 billion people still live, 130 million workers are already surplus, neither needed for farming nor employed by rural industries, a newspaper reported last year. For China's vast hinterlands, low-end work in the cities has been a vital safety valve.

- Erik Eckholm, "On the Road to Capitalism, China Hits a Nasty Curve: Joblessness." New York Times, Jan. 20, 1998, Section A, P. 1.

25. Essentially, it is a place to listen, gossip, observe one's fellow, catch up on events and hold forth. The souk is at once a "salon", a club, a thoroughfare, a forum, and the local radio, "the eyes and ears of Islam."

- Ahmed Sefriou quoted in "Trois Villes Saintes de Moroc." Guide to Morocco (Alfred Knopff, 1956).

26. Periodic markets, set up in weekly rings of markets, can act to correct underlying structural imbalances. Every person knows where and on what day there will be a market. On market day the full range of urban functions can be taken to a marginalised community for a few hours a week, and communities are able to join the regional and national trading systems on good terms. Traders, marketers and service providers follow the ring of markets, gaining a full week's work. The markets, by adding a rhythm, a calendar, to the landscape, congregate people, allowing for economies of scale, lower unit costs, and a greater diversity of goods and services.

-- Promoting Local Markets: An Excerpt from South Africa's Rural Development Strategy of the Government of National Unity, Pretoria, 12 October 1995.

27. City streets that lack abundant economic and social activity wither and die. No one visits them, no one opens a business on them and few people want to live there. It's exactly the extraordinary number, diversity and creativity of the people on its streets, including vendors, that makes this city so vibrantly alive.

-- Robert Lederman, Presdient of A.R.T.I.S.T. in Sidewalks are not just for walking (1/31/98)

28. I've always had the feeling that our only chance in life is to stick with people who are discriminated against and ostracized. Otherwise we find ourselves in the same corner as the power-hungry clowns who always succeed because they wait to see who wins and then rush in at the right moment.

--Miroslav Holub (quoted from someone's email signature)

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