By Theodore Morrow Spitzer and Hilary Baum, Public Market Partners, Inc., Bronx, New York.
Contributing writers and advisors: Stephen Davies, Toni Gold, Fred Kent, Larry Lund, David O'Neil, and Aaron Zaretsky.
Published jointly by Project for Public Spaces, Inc., and the Urban Land Institute. 120 pages, color and B&W photographs. 1994.
The following text contains the authors' manuscript of Chapter 1, prior to final editing and design, and without numerous text boxes and color photographs. Information about how to order the book is found on the Public Markets and Community Revitalization Home Page
Cyber version provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET.
Public markets are making a comeback in American and Canadian cities. From Seattle to Baltimore, historic public market halls and districts have been redeveloped and upgraded, allowing them to compete in a contemporary retailing environment while retaining their essential, authentic elements. New public market halls have been developed in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Hartford, Connecticut, as well as in Canadian cities such as Vancouver and Montreal. Public markets in the open air, including many farmers' markets and craft markets, have sprung up in cities throughout the country, attracting people back to the public spaces of their downtowns and neighborhoods. Whether as weekly outdoor markets that convene only in the warmer months, indoor market halls that operate every day year-round, or entire market districts, a number of American cities are finding that public markets provide an effective strategy for revitalizing urban communities.
The reasons for the renaissance of markets, one of the oldest and most widespread forms of retail trade, are diverse. Cities looking to bring consistent activity to their public spaces are using regularly scheduled markets to transform streets, plazas, and parking lots into bustling "people places," alive with vitality and commerce. Public markets are valued because they create common ground in the community, where people feel comfortable to mix, mingle, and enjoy the serendipitous pleasures of strolling, socializing, people-watching, and shopping in a special environment. Other observers see public markets as an effective way to support local economic development and small businesses in their own cities. As distributors of needed goods and services, market merchants and vendors provide farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, ethnic foods, crafts, and personal services that often are unavailable elsewhere at the same level of quality, variety, and price. People are rediscovering that public markets, with their emphasis on locally grown and locally made wares, and on locally owned businesses, accentuate the qualities that make their communities special.
At a time when both the public sector and nonprofit groups are looking for cost-effective economic development strategies, public markets can address social and economic problems without the need for ongoing subsidy. Although start-up costs generally require public or philanthropic support, successful public markets operate self-sufficiently and can fulfill an often elusive aim of public/private partnership: the achievement of public sector goals through the harnessing of private sector means. Markets are a proven vehicle for nonprofits and the public sector to get involved with entrepreneurial activity.
As for the term "public market," its meaning has changed over time and still differs from place to place. Traditionally, a public market has been defined in the United States as a municipally owned and operated building in which vendors sell fresh food from open stalls. While some public markets still match this definition, the diverse examples of public markets offered throughout this book suggest that a wider concept is needed. Public markets come in many shapes and settings, offer a broad range of products, and are owned and operated by various types of organizations, not just city governments. In addition to the old-fashioned public market buildings, today's definition of public markets also embraces many farmers' markets, craft markets, and even some flea markets. Public market districts, which can incorporate the elements of these types of markets along with those of more traditional forms of retailing, are a particularly exciting form.
At their most basic, markets include vendors or merchants who meet regularly at the same location; a sponsoring entity that holds legal and financial responsibility and that oversees operations; and, in some cases, the structures or facilities in which the market activity is housed. Three characteristics distinguish public markets from other types of related retail activity:
· Most important, public markets have public goals. Public goals give a defined public purpose to the market activity. Typically, these goals might include: attracting shoppers to a downtown or neighborhood commercial district, providing affordable retailing opportunities to small businesses, preserving farming or farmland in the region, activating an underused public space, or displacing an undesirable use of a public space. Understanding and clarifying these public goals are important steps in the market development process. Deciding who determines the goals and how they are implemented are also crucial issues.
· Second, public markets are located on and/or create a public space within the community. This is the visible aspect of a market: an inviting, safe, and lively place that attracts a wide range of people. As an effective place where people mix, a public market can become the heart and soul of a community, its common ground, a place where people interact easily, and a setting in which other community activities take place. It is important to note that a public market need not be located on publicly owned land. As long as the privately owned land is easily accessible, the market may be perceived as public space.
· Finally, public markets are made up of locally owned, independent businesses that are operated by their owners, unlike the ubiquitous franchises that dominate retailing today. This characteristic helps account for the local flavor of public markets and for the distinctiveness of the shopping experience. By extension, it means that festival marketplaces, such as Faneuil Hall in Boston or Harborplace in Baltimore, generally are not considered public markets. Although they consciously attempt to promote a market atmosphere, today's festival markets are dependent on nationally based retail chains. Public markets deliberately seek out local entrepreneurs and businesses and therefore offer an alternative to common retailing practices.
Public Markets and Community Revitalization is meant to encourage people concerned about local economic development, urban and regional planning, and the vitality of cities and nearby agriculture to take an informed look at creating new public markets or expanding their cities' existing markets or market programs. The authors address two fundamental questions: How can public markets offer an effective strategy for revitalizing a community? And, what is involved in establishing and operating a market?
To answer the first question, Part I of the book defines and describes the various types of public markets common today, gives a short overview of the long history of public markets, examines the benefits of public markets to communities, and discusses the challenges of developing and operating such markets. This information should lead to an understanding of how public markets can represent effective strategies for community revitalization.
To answer the second question, Part II describes a model planning and implementation process for developing a successful public market. A "successful" venture is one that will be, at minimum, financially self-sufficient in regards to operations and contributory to the physical, social, and economic revitalization of its community.
Finally, in Part III, this volume examines management issues, suggests ways in which markets can evolve over time to expand their benefits, and offers projections for the future of public markets.
While this information should serve anyone interested in public markets, the book particularly addresses one participant in the public market development process: the sponsor. The sponsor is defined as the organization bearing primary (typically, legal and fiduciary) responsibility for the public market. For present purposes, the sponsor will be the organization, group of individuals, or group of organizations, that can decide to develop a market and can follow through on that decision.
Widely varied organizations recently have become involved in sponsoring markets. Some of these entities include local government agencies, community development corporations (CDCs), churches, downtown management organizations, local development corporations, public corporations, and not-for-profit organizations. While local governments have been involved with public markets since antiquity, the increase in participation by community-based organizations and downtown associations is a recent development. Several factors have contributed to this change. First, many community-based organizations have expanded their activities from advocacy and planning to include more concrete projects. Certain CDCs, for instance, have achieved notable success as developers of low-income housing. Second, downtown management organizations nationwide are running special event programs and supplementing city services. These nonprofit organizations have gained relevant experience and have adopted an aggressive, project-oriented attitude that can be transferred to running a public market. They see the need to branch out from their existing programs into new areas that will benefit their communities, especially in the sphere of local economic development.
While an organization's attitude is important, attitude alone will not overcome some of the inherent limitations of many nonprofits: small staffs, volunteer boards, limited financial resources, poor communication skills, and unpredictable revenue streams. For any development project to attain success, it must be within the capacity of the developer to accomplish. Luckily, the wide spectrum of market forms offers many possibilities for projects that can provide a significant impact without overreaching the organization's financial and managerial capacity. An organization need not aspire to (and, indeed, sometimes must be discouraged from) building a large-scale market hall with dozens of full-time vendors, when a simpler and less risky alternative exists. Simpler projects sometimes can accomplish many of the same public goals without overwhelming the organization.
Furthermore, capital-intensive projects will require heavier debt loads, and the more debt a market project carries, the more it must be driven by financial considerations rather than public goals. Unless the sponsor has adequate capacity to undertake an expensive project, it actually might jeopardize its public goals by undertaking something overly complex project. Therefore, care must be given to matching the organization's capacity and goals with the appropriate form and scale of public market.
Many of today's large, successful public markets have evolved from modest beginnings, with little initial capital investment. Pike Place Market in Seattle, generally recognized as the premier public market in the United States, began with farmers selling produce in the open air on a downtown street; today, the market includes hundreds of farmers, craftspeople, and independent businesses. The Greenmarket program in New York City got its start with one location in 1975; by 1994, Greenmarket operated twenty farmers' markets throughout the city, some of which function year-round. A potential sponsor with limited resources can start its involvement with public markets by conceptualizing and developing a low-capital, open-air market that operates once a week for several months. Even on this scale, the market will exert a significant, positive impact on the life of a community. With time and experience, and with ground-level success, the market might be expanded to take advantage of new opportunities that will broaden its impact.
While it is easy to understand that the individual vendors or merchants who operate businesses within a market are striving to succeed financially, public market sponsors do not always consider the public market itself, independent of the many small businesses within, as a business enterprise. Furthermore, because public markets do not follow standard rules of development (that is, there are no formulas for creating a successful public market), the developer and operator must be entrepreneurial in spirit and action. Several types of organizations that commonly develop and operate public markets - local governments or nonprofit organizations such as chambers of commerce, downtown associations, and church groups - often are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the mind-set and skills of commercial developers and operators. Once the development process has begun, the organization's attitude must change, or the market will have a smaller chance of surviving the challenges that confront it. While the development of an entrepreneurial venture can seem like foreign territory to many governmental or nonprofit entities, the results garnered by many of those who have dared to enter it have been impressive.
Although some public markets around the country have been subsidized continually, the authors argue in this book that a public market can only achieve stability and provide significant benefits over time if it is operated in a businesslike manner and generates enough revenue to pay for the full cost of operation within the first several years of start-up. Because of their focus on fulfilling public goals (which implies, axiomatically, that the private sector is not fulfilling this function on its own), public markets typically require assistance to cover the costs of start-up and capital development. Long-term operating subsidies, however, tend to go hand-in-hand with the erosion of the market's ability to attract vendors and maintain its competitive position. Also, if subsidies are removed unexpectedly, the market may be unable to sustain itself and be forced to close. Reliance on subsidies year after year suggests that the market is not being operated in a businesslike manner, with adequate effort going toward attracting the mix of vendors and customers that could make the market self-reliant.
This emphasis on the business aspects of developing and running a public market should not diminish the importance of its eleemosynary aspects. Local governments and nonprofits get involved with public markets because they value the markets' ability to achieve social goals and to further the organizations' nonprofit purposes. In practice, the market sponsor must artfully blend the economic imperatives with the greater good. An organization that undertakes a public market project faces the difficult task of balancing the market's public goals with the hardnosed economic realities of developing a viable, competitive, and self-supporting business activity.
This view of public markets as business enterprises is meant, in part, to distinguish them from real estate development projects, which have been the more common pursuit of nonprofit organizations. Sponsors must recognize the crucial differences involved in running an ongoing, consumer-oriented retail activity. Public markets, for example, require constant, on-site management and promotion. The creation of housing for low-income households, which has been a focus for many nonprofit groups, differs because a nearly limitless demand exists for the end-product. By contrast, public markets operate in a highly competitive retail environment in which the consumer enjoys a great deal of choice.
For organizations unaccustomed to starting and sustaining their own entrepreneurial ventures, the business aspects of developing and operating a market can be a significant proposition, even if a relatively simple type of market is being contemplated. Parts II and III of this book should be especially helpful in guiding organizations toward making the right decisions for their situations and toward making a successful public market.
The idea of the public market as a specific place where products are sold or traded regularly can be found in many cultures. The basic form and function of markets (especially open-air markets) retain a striking continuity across both time and place. Whether one is shopping at a produce market high in a Himalayan village or in a crafts market in downtown Johannesburg, at a straw market in the Caribbean or a medicinal herb market in Asia, at an art market in Paris or a farmers' market in Des Moines, there is no doubt of the universality of the market experience. This universality is one of the features that make markets readily identifiable and comfortable gathering places for ethnically diverse communities, as seen in the inner city areas of American cities.
Public markets continue to be a customary element of everyday life in many parts of the world, especially for the purchase of food and other necessary goods. Europe boasts about 80,000 markets, including at least 3,000 market halls, in addition to the more numerous outdoor, periodic markets and fairs. Barcelona, Spain, relies on public markets for a high percentage of its food distribution: 81% of its residents report that they regularly shop at the city's forty-one neighborhood markets, according to the City's market administration. In Italy, renowned for its colorful outdoor and indoor markets, public markets account for 55% of the country's distribution of fruits and vegetables.
Latin American countries also maintain their market traditions. One legacy of the Spanish conquest was the development of markets, along with government offices and the church, in the town's central square. While these market buildings still function, less capital-intensive options have arisen as well. In Peru, for example, researchers recently discovered that the capital city of Lima has more than 91,000 street vendors alone, in addition to those vendors who sell their wares in the city's fifty-seven government-built and 274 privately constructed markets. In Ecuador, town centers become a series of street markets once a week, selling everything from shoes and hardware to crafts and food.
Asia contains some of the world's most exciting markets, from Tokyo's sprawling fifty-five acre fish market with nearly 1,700 stalls, to the enormous Chatuchak Market of Thailand, to the high altitude fruit and vegetable markets of Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. Economic reforms in China since 1979 have spurred the creation of thousands of "free markets" around the country that sell everything from fruits and vegetables to industrial machinery. The Chinese government reportedly has spent hundreds of millions of dollars building and renovating indoor markets for both wholesale and retail trade.
The United States has its own history of public markets, which predates its independence and which has significantly influenced the urban development patterns found throughout the country. At one time, nearly every city in America had at least one public market; hence the ubiquitous Market Street in most modern downtowns. The form and function of public markets in the United States descended most directly from European colonial influences. In turn, the European market tradition can be traced to the roots of western civilization. A brief examination of this long history reveals some interesting patterns and offers insight into the nature of public markets in the United States and Canada.
While markets first were located on the periphery of settlements in ancient Greece, they eventually moved to central locations. There, city leaders could oversee and control the unpredictable course of the markets' activity, particularly their capacity to assign value to commodities outside the cultural norms of status, loyalty, and obligation. As early as the eighth century B.C., Greek settlements were developing in response to market conditions, and leaders were attempting to limit the effects of the market. As trading became increasingly important to the livelihood of cities, markets were placed within the conventional structure of government. As it developed from these beginnings, the ancient agora became a marketplace for both goods and ideas, at the center of economic and political life in Greek cities.
Aspects of the ancient marketplace endured in Europe into the Middle Ages. Local authorities continued to feel compelled to retain tight control over market activity. In England, for example, local officials sanctioned trade in predetermined areas of a town, where they could oversee the transactions. The Crown maintained the right to grant market charters, many of which were held by local churches.
The public market as a type of building was firmly established by the seventeenth century. Indoor market halls organized buyers and sellers of food products in orderly and consistent patterns, and provided protection from inclement weather. Typically, public markets were built in the center of town. In England, they continued to be the economic and social centers of urban life until the early twentieth century; they still play an important role in many English cities.
The various colonies in America followed the European public market traditions, with indoor halls accompanying the northern Europeans and outdoor markets in town squares following the Spanish. As in Europe, the buying and selling of food within the city typically was restricted to public markets, giving city officials the ability to watch over the trading process, to regulate weights and quality, and to ensure that the local population received sustenance before outsiders did.
Among the first records of market activity in the colonies is a 1634 entry in the diary of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, showing that a court order had established a market in Boston, to be held every Thursday. A few years later, in 1639, Boston constructed its first public market building at the center of town, leading to the town dock. At about the same time, New York City centralized food retailing into public markets. As new cities developed, the pattern continued. In Columbus, Ohio, local leaders erected the first public market building even before the city received its corporate charter from the state - a reflection, perhaps, of the relative importance of food and government. By 1918, the U.S. Census Bureau found that more than half of American cities with 30,000 inhabitants or more had municipal markets. In total, the census bureau counted 237 municipal markets in 128 of the 227 cities with populations above 30,000.
Public markets often doubled as early American community centers. Public meeting rooms and military armories with drill rooms were built as part of markets. In Charleston, South Carolina, as well as other cities, the seat of town government was located in the public market's second story. Some markets included a fire watchtower, with the market bell serving as a fire alarm. The first government building in Chicago was a market house built down the center of State Street; the second floor served as a meeting place for the Common Council. In 1794, the City of Richmond, Virginia, constructed a new brick market building to replace an open wooden shed built in 1780. The new facility had arcades on the first floor, with stalls and a large hall on the second floor to accommodate dances, city council meetings, and theatrical events.
Growing populations and expanding boundaries led municipal governments to create public market systems to meet the increased demand for food. A large central market would be supplemented by a number of smaller market halls scattered throughout a city's neighborhoods. At its peak, the municipal market system in New Orleans contained twenty-three markets in neighborhoods throughout the city, with the French Market at Jackson Square serving as the focus. When the U.S. Census Bureau conducted its count in 1918, Baltimore was next in line after New Orleans with eleven markets, while New York City had nine, Pittsburgh six, Milwaukee and Washington five, and Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, and St. Louis four each. Some cities, such as Baltimore, still maintain a network of city-owned and -operated market halls governed by a municipal department of markets. In most cities, however, the system of market halls no longer survives.
As late as the 1940s, American cities still were building indoor public markets. In New York City, for instance, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia oversaw the construction of a series of market halls to house displaced street peddlers. In this case, government action followed continual conflict between pushcart vendors and store owners, which came to a head in the "pushcart wars" on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1938. Although they were designed to accommodate pushcarts directly into market stalls, these markets evolved into more traditional public market halls. A number of them, including the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side, La Marqueta in Spanish Harlem, and the Moore Street Market in Brooklyn, are still owned by the city and open for business.
Public markets retained their status as the principal places to buy food into the early decades of the twentieth century. By that time, however, their monopoly over food sales generally had been lost, and the markets often fell into a state of decline. Several factors appear to have caused this descent.
While the market halls needed continuous maintenance and capital repairs, local governments often redirected the revenues derived from market rents toward meeting other municipal obligations. As a result, the market facilities deteriorated until they were no longer safe to use or economically viable. Also, a new, private class of grocers, who established stores outside the public market halls, did not see the need for public support for their competitors, and argued that confining retail food sales to markets had become an inefficient practice in large cities. And finally, public markets did not receive the day-to-day professional management they needed to remain viable and competitive. Municipal personnel often functioned primarily as passive managers of property, rather than as active stewards of commercial activity. Managers sometimes were selected for patronage considerations, rather than for the skills and motivation needed to run the market successfully. Changes in rents often required approval of a city council, and the political process proved ineffective at setting reasonable rents to support the costs of operation.
By World War II, the heyday of public markets in the United States had ended. Large corporations, taking advantage of the country's railroad network, new refrigeration technologies, and corporate control of food processing, began to dominate food distribution. This trend continued with the development of the interstate highway system after 1955 (and the eventual ascendancy of trucking over railways) and with increased corporate control over larger and more specialized farms. Strict food safety and handling laws, which required costly capital investments, and competition from the new chain supermarkets drove independent food retailers out of business. Increasingly, public markets were seen as expendable, and many market buildings were razed or converted to other uses. Many halls that retained their market function were located in areas that did not undergo redevelopment. Some markets survived despite the efforts of cities to abolish them. The City of Chicago, for example, began trying to disband the Maxwell Street Market soon after officially designating the area as a public market in 1912. Government efforts to close the open-air market occurred regularly in the decades that followed, including the removal of all site management functions in the mid-1970s, but the market has miraculously survived to this day with over 800 vendors and perhaps 30,000 customers on a peak Sunday.
Some cities never stopped supporting their historic public markets, although the character of many markets changed in the post-World War II years. After years of decline, the local government of New Orleans decided in the early 1970s to reorient the French Market to serve the needs of tourists rather than local residents, and rebuilt the historic structures to accommodate souvenir shops and restaurants. The remaining traditional food purveyors, including the wholesale traders, were encouraged to move out. In Washington, D.C., while the government tore down the city's large central market to make way for a complex of federal office buildings, a satellite market (Eastern Market) in a more residential section of Washington was spared the wrecking ball, and has since become a recognized community asset. In many cases, the public markets that remained were the beneficiaries of benign neglect.
In the early 1970s, some cities began to reevaluate their public markets and to redevelop their historic marketplaces, preparing them to compete in a contemporary retailing environment while retaining their authentic elements. Central Market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, constructed in 1889, became one of the first recipients of federal funds for historic preservation when it was restored in the early 1970s. Pike Place Market in Seattle, which nearly was leveled for a downtown urban renewal project, was completely restored in the 1970s and 1980s.
Other market halls, however, lost their historic identity as true public markets. Quincy Market in downtown Boston, once home to scores of independent fresh-food vendors, is now a festival marketplace with a food court, specialty shops, and restaurants, many of which are national franchises. Some smaller market halls around New Orleans were leased to single tenants and now function as grocery stores. Philadelphia, another great city of markets, contains the empty shells of now-abandoned public market buildings.
Several Canadian cities, most notably Vancouver, have developed new public market halls over the past twenty years. The most successful of Vancouver's market ventures has been Granville Island Public Market, which was the centerpiece for a major redevelopment of a dilapidated industrial island adjacent to the downtown. Once the hub of local heavy industry, Granville Island was reborn as a mixed recreational, cultural, commercial, retail, arts, and industrial center. The market is housed in 40,000 square feet of renovated warehouses, with space for nearly fifty merchants of both fresh and prepared food. The federal government, through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, provided an initial grant for reconstruction. Granville Island has not received a subsidy since then and operates independently, with oversight from the Granville Island Trust. Vancouver also boasts the Lonsdale Quay Public Market, as well as a completely private venture, Bridge Market.
A number of other privately funded enterprises that tried to emulate the success of Pike Place and Granville Island Public Market, however, opened and soon closed in the 1980s. Several attempts were made in the San Francisco area to develop large market halls, but these projects were commercial failures. The San Francisco area is home to numerous open-air markets, including the Heart of the City Market, which takes place in front of City Hall in downtown San Francisco, and the highly successful system of markets operated around the bay area by Marin County Farmers' Markets. But, the area does not have a thriving indoor public market.
This new interest in public market halls has extended to community development corporations (CDCs) in several cities around the country, including Hartford, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Miami. One of these CDC-generated projects, the Broad Park Development Corporation's Mercado in Hartford, is discussed at length in Chapter 3. These projects have shared a number of characteristics. Each market has occupied a relatively small building, containing about ten vendors. These projects took, on average, some seven years to develop and required significant assistance in the form of public and private grants and low-interest loans. The Haitian Market in Miami opened and closed, while the Mercado project in San Antonio's Avenida Guadalupe neighborhood has struggled to open. It is interesting to note that these CDCs picked a particularly high-risk and capital-intensive form of public market, which required highly specialized development and management skills.
Over the past twenty years, markets have been developed or redeveloped in a wide variety of physical shapes and configurations. These forms can be viewed along a spectrum, from simple and temporary at one end to complex and permanent at the other. While many combinations and variations exist along the continuum, there are four basic forms. At the simple end of the spectrum are markets that take place seasonally and meet once or twice a week in the open air. The site might be a plaza, street, or parking lot with few or no site improvements. Vendors bring their own shade, such as umbrellas or canopies that connect to the sides of their vehicles, and all trace of the market is removed at the end of the day. Most of the country's nearly 2,000 farmers' markets take this form, as well as many craft and flea markets (which may or may not be considered public markets, depending on whether they have public goals and meet the other established criteria). On days when open-air markets do not operate, there might be little or no physical indication of their existence. Without buildings or the need to own property, open-air markets can be inexpensive to develop and operate.
A somewhat more complex form of market includes some kind of overhead structure, similar to a shed roof. In this form, the market retains an open-air orientation, but vendors and customers are protected from the weather, and the market assumes an air of permanence because the structure remains in place even if the market operates only several days each week. Sometimes, shed-roof structures are used in other ways, such as cover for a parking lot, on days when the market does not operate. In other cases, a market will use an existing structure, such as a highway overpass or the portico of a building. The Ann Arbor Farmers' Market, the Albuquerque Town Square crafts market, the Dallas Farmers' Market, and the Ithaca, New York Farmers' Market all are examples of markets with open structures, and demonstrate the variety of shelter within this category.
Public market halls or enclosed buildings represent a significant step forward in complexity, risk, and potential reward. Indoor markets must stand on property that is completely devoted to the market activity. Merchants generally sell throughout the year, six days a week, although some indoor markets, such as the Flourtown Market in Philadelphia, operate only three or four days a week. Merchants in enclosed markets typically hold long-term leases for their stalls, in part because many of them must invest in display cases, refrigeration, and cooking facilities. To supplement their full-time tenants, many indoor markets have part-time vendors, such as farmers and craftspeople, who sell from "day tables," spaces within the market that can be rented by the day or for the short term. Not only do part-time vendors bring new or seasonal products into the market, but often they are the type of fledgling entrepreneur that market sponsors hope to support with the development project. Day tables offer a way to incorporate vendors who cannot commit to a lease and require flexible, inexpensive retailing space.
In large downtown market buildings, customers can find a tremendous selection of produce, dairy products, bakery goods, meat, poultry, seafood, coffees, teas, and spices. On this large scale, the number and diversity of vendors create a critical mass that can attract customers from throughout the city. Successfully operating a large market hall, however, generally necessitates long hours and operation on the weekend, when most shopping at public markets takes place. Complex building systems, storage requirements, and refrigeration needs make market halls a considerable investment for sponsors and merchants alike. While the costs and effort needed to maintain these large markets are great, the potential benefits to the community are considerable and can justify the large expenditures of time and money.
In their most evolved state, public markets become the centers of districts in which related businesses choose to locate, creating a highly synergistic and dynamic economic zone. Once the market activity has been established and people are drawn to the site regularly, complementary businesses such as restaurants, specialty food stores, and neighborhood services will locate nearby, filling vacant storefronts and thereby renewing urban areas. Some market districts have strict and legally enforceable use and architectural controls to maintain the districts' flavor and purpose, as well as common management and marketing efforts. In these cases, preference is given to fresh-food and related businesses, to vendors serving a diversity of economic and ethnic groups, and to start-up businesses. Pike Place Market in Seattle, Roanoke City Market, and Eastern Market in Detroit all exemplify thriving market districts in historic areas. Other market districts have emerged without strict controls but in clear response to the vibrant market activity. In Dallas, a number of privately owned wholesale food businesses have situated themselves on private property around the borders of the publicly owned and operated Dallas Farmers' Market. These wholesale houses benefit from their proximity to the place where five hundred farm families bring their crops from throughout Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.
Interestingly, neither the climate of a city nor its size necessarily determines the form of shelter. Open-air markets can be found in the densest parts of downtown Boston, as well as in hamlets in the Rockies. Markets covered by shed roofs are found in Houston, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in Richmond, Virginia. Downtown Los Angeles, small-town Meadville, Pennsylvania, and the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati all have market halls. Indeed, decisions about the form of a public market are highly idiosyncratic, relating to local traditions and to the goals, resources, and intentions of the organization developing the market. Sometimes, open-air markets evolve into market halls; at other times, market halls create spaces where open-air selling can occur on an adjacent sidewalk, parking lot, or plaza.
Public markets are needed today because they can effectively address some of the vexing problems of our cities: the need to reinvigorate urban shopping districts and make inviting and safe public spaces; the need to support small-scale economic activity and confront the problems of street vending; the need to provide fresh, high-quality produce to inner-city residents; and the need to protect open space and preserve farming around cities. Examples of public markets that do all of these things are presented in the next chapter, which discusses the benefits of public markets in greater detail. The following, however, is an overview of the reasons why public markets can make effective community revitalization strategies.
The recent trend in downtown retail development has been the creation of internally focused, suburban-style shopping malls in urban commercial districts, transporting a successful formula from one environment to an entirely different one. Regrettably, downtown shopping malls often are not integrated into the existing urban landscape, but maintain the design and control characteristics that evolved in the suburbs. In many cities, downtown malls (often coupled with second-story or underground walkway and parking systems) actually have led to further deterioration of an active urban street life and have provided little support for adjacent commercial activity, even though the projects have been hailed as symbols of downtown renewal. Independent mom and pop businesses are often displaced by national retailers that have no connection with the neighborhood. In contrast, public markets thrive on the distinctive characteristics of urban places, taking full advantage of their density, complexity, and spontaneity. Unlike repetitious and homogenized festival markets, nationally franchised stores, and replicated attractions, authentic public markets offer a glimpse of a city's unique culture.
The growing awareness that small businesses are responsible for most job growth in this country has led local and national leaders to search for innovative strategies to support entrepreneurs. To date, most of the attention has focused on the production aspects of business development, with programs such as small business incubators that provide subsidized work space and technical assistance to manufacturing firms. Similarly, both domestic and international examples of micro-enterprise programs predominantly address issues relating to production.
Inadequate attention has been given to an equally (or perhaps more) important issue: distribution. Many potential entrepreneurs have skills that can be channeled into economically productive activity if they have a place to sell. Public markets offer budding entrepreneurs something they cannot create by themselves: viable locations in which to sell their products or services, coupled with shared marketing and promotional programs that attract customers to the totality of the market experience, not just to an individual business. Furthermore, public markets integrate start-up businesses with experienced vendors, producing a setting for the natural transfer of skills and experiences among businesses. By contrast, the fact that small business incubator programs generally are made up of business neophytes only hampers the cross-fertilization process.
The growing rhetoric about supporting small businesses, however, has not removed the numerous barriers that inhibit small-scale economic activity. Complicated and expensive license and permit requirements, the lack of affordable leases or real estate, bans on street vending, restricted or nonexistent access to capital, and the lack of places to conduct trade are all impediments to the prospective low-income entrepreneur. Supporting small businesses by developing appropriate distribution mechanisms such as public markets can help restore cities to one of their most essential purposes: providing economic opportunity regardless of an individual's existing resources.
To function properly, cities must support not only large firms and organizations, but also countless small economic transactions among individuals and small businesses. Public markets can offer an effective strategy for reintroducing and fostering these transactions and thereby can help restore the functioning of inner-city neighborhoods. By lowering the barriers for start-up businesses, by achieving a critical mass of vendors, and by establishing a direction or theme for economic activity, public markets build a framework for sustainable economic growth. Public markets have proven that they can draw customers when a large group of individual entrepreneurs is brought together in a common location, and when the activity is backed up with professional management support.
The necessity for and resilience of small-scale economic activity are manifest in the enormous growth of street vending. Myriad restrictions, however, make most street vending illegal in American cities. The criminalization of street vending has lumped the activity of "legitimate" street vendors (those selling otherwise legal products) with truly problematic and pathological behavior, such as drug dealing and trafficking in stolen goods. Although street vendors regularly face confiscation of their goods by the police and lack legal rights, they continue to sell illegally. People unable to join the economic mainstream because they lack financial resources or are intimidated by formal requirements need alternatives. This appears to be particularly true for recent immigrants, especially from Latino, Asian, and African communities that have longstanding market and street trading traditions. Markets can help legitimize street vending by offering vendors a legal, safe, and supportive environment for business. In this way, public markets can be crucial stepping stones toward entry into the economic mainstream.
Interestingly, a parallel phenomenon has occurred in the agricultural sector. Small farms practically have been ignored by formal support systems in the United States as government attention has focused on large-scale, typically corporate-owned agricultural operations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, has only one person devoted to small farming issues, even though small family farms produce about one-third of all food grown in the country. State departments of agriculture offer varying levels of support to small farmers, and the trend has been to reduce programs that benefit small farmers. Unable to compete successfully on the wholesale level, many small farmers are looking for alternative methods of distributing their products, including urban farmers' markets.
Small farmers who live within several hours' drive of urban areas are finding that farmers' markets are critical if they are to continue farming. For many, these markets have provided the opportunity to sell directly to the consumer and circumvent layers of middlemen. The face-to-face contact with consumers offers growers valuable, direct information about their buyers' preferences, and farmers who go to market have responded by offering a diverse range of products, including new and old-fashioned varieties of produce, specialty items, and organically grown fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, a new generation of growers has begun commercial production because nearby farmers' markets offer viable outlets for their yields.
The authors' national surveys of farmers' market activities suggest that more farmers' markets will be founded as the demand for farm-fresh produce bought directly from the farmer continues to grow. One notable trend is the entrance of Southeast Asian immigrants into urban farmers' markets in California, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, and Virginia, bringing with them intriguing new products carried from their homelands and infusing new energy into small farming communities.
The open-space preservation movement, pioneered in the 1960s, which recently has relied on land trusts and deed restrictions to stop development of farmland around cities, is now realizing that lasting solutions for open-space preservation require a working landscape, that is, that the movement must strive to keep the land in agricultural and horticultural production. Farmers' markets can become a critical strategy for making farming near cities profitable again, which in turn will protect open space from sprawling suburban development.
Problems with food are not limited to production, but encompass the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables as well. Inner-city neighborhoods are often underserved by supermarkets with limited choices and higher prices, at a time when consumers increasingly value fresh produce and medical specialists and the government promote the health benefits of higher consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. The need for creative responses to the delivery of fresh food offers an opportunity for public markets to reaffirm their historical function of bringing fresh food into the city, especially from regional farmers. New federal programs - such as the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program, an adjunct of the USDA's popular Women, Infant, and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program (WIC) - are showing that farmers' markets can be reintroduced into poorer neighborhoods with only modest levels of funding.
In conclusion, this book does not attempt to answer every question or describe every scenario that will be encountered in creating a public market, nor should it be considered a blueprint for development. In fact, one defining characteristic of public markets is the uniqueness of each market, which draws from a set of special circumstances: the history and culture of the community in which it is located; the goals, circumstances, and capacity of its sponsor; and the particularities of its location, customers, vendors, and design. Nonetheless, a great deal can be learned from what has worked and not worked elsewhere, and from an understanding of the evolutionary nature of public markets. Successful public markets are not static, rigid institutions, but are constantly changing to meet new demands and opportunities. The purpose of this book is to describe examples of public markets from around the United States, as well as from other countries, pointing out both the commonalities and the idiosyncrasies of public markets everywhere. The chapters on planning present only a model, one that must be adjusted to meet local circumstances and needs.
Notes
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