Alfonso Morales's blog

Food grown is useless without a place to sell it and street or public markets of every type are where we should find food for sale to please every palate.

Content from the recent conference is now available including comprehensive notes from every session, photos, and video. Please see: https://www.growingfoodandjustice.org/

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.

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.

In New York, and around the country, street vendors are asked to comply with various regulations about their businesses, health, food safety, merchandise, and even cart or stall design.

Standards are important, but in New York there are complaints about over standardization, including problems like inadequate locks and the boring similarity of the stalls.

Street Vendors help make places unique, we cannot hobble them with unrealistic design goals. Not everyone will approve of the "street furniture" merchants use to market their wares, but context matters and if cities INSIST on design standards then cities should also CONSULT with merchants on how to make the standards serve the goals of the city, the public, and the merchant.

Together cities and merchants can identify desirable and important features of vending stalls, features that enhance the business and the neighborhood, both of which are important goals merchants serve when they do business on the street.