Blogs

Hello Friends!

I was at UCLA for the street vendor conference and it was great!

I met Joaquin Contreras who will be joining us as a blogger.

Edward Naa Dakora, from South Africa, will be doing the same!

Thanks to them both.

For your information I have a new article on zoning for urban agriculture - see the journal Zoning Practice. My very large review of marketplaces in the U.S. will appear in the Journal of Planning Literature sometime in the next six months or so....

More about that later!

best to you all!

THIS MAY 14-15 there will be a big conference of street vendors...

THERE WILL BE a number of grants to support travel to the conference!

Contact the street vendor project svp@urbanjustice.org

SE HABLA ESPANOL!

Ay nos vemos!

The market was held in October and it was a great success. Vendors made money and customers enjoyed themselves. It was such a good success that plans are on for doing it again in the summer of 2010, but regularly, either weekly or monthly, with support from the community.

Good news and congratulations to Nikhil Agrawal

Folks,

Most of what we write is about policy, here's a practical idea from a market master:

Simple trick to keep banners from ripping off their grommets . . .
run a rope through all grommets -- in one, out the other --- then when you stretch the rope you won't be putting the tension on the banner (but on the rope instead).
Then add a knot on both sides of the last grommets on each side of the banner (two knots at each end of the banner, one on each side of the grommet), these knots help to keep the banner stretched while still allowing the wind to pull on the rope overall rather than the banner fabric. Difficult to describe without drawing or in person display.
Hope that helps,
Mark Wall
Thriving Community Marketplaces

FARMERS MARKETS PROTECTED BY LEGISLATION

On Monday, September 21, the Council unanimously approved Council Bill 116612, cutting the permit fees charged to Farmers Markets by approximately 90%. This action is a key implementation step for the Local Food Action Initiative (Resolution 31019). Under the new fee structure, fees are reduced from $11000 to $550 for a 28 week market. Farmers markets are experiencing difficulty staging markets on privately owned sites, and this helps them in securing more stable locations on public property.