Blogs

For Immediate Release: March 23, 2009

Maxwell Street Maybe Has Already Moved to 41st and Ashland

By Steve Balkin, Roosevelt University at Chicago,
Email: sbalkin@roosevelt.edu
Webpage: http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/Balkin/maxwell.htm

Like a frog slowly dying in gradually hotter water, the New Maxwell Street Market has been killed off by City Hall and Aldermanic indifference, ineptness, and ignorance. But before being boiled, multitudes of vendors have voted with their feet to go elsewhere, mainly to the Swap O Rama Flea Market on 41st and Ashland, where fees are lower and management is more skilled.

Empty vendor spaces abound on Des Plaines Street on Sunday, the new site of the New Maxwell Street Market. And the Blues musicians have disappeared too. The explanation is basic textbook economics, higher fees, stifling regulators, and mismanagement. The Mayor’s Office of Special Events now runs the Market with Jam Productions as their highly paid co-conspirators. Neither of them know how to run a grassroots community public market and, it seems, neither of them want to learn.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is used by business and government to classify and measure economic activity in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Office of Management and Budget’s Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC) announced it is soliciting proposals from the public for changes to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) structure and content to be included in a potential 2012 revision.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR US WHO WORK ON MARKETS AND MERCHANTS. Merchants were once a census occupation category and right now we cannot disaggregate from existing categories to know what is happening in the "street" economy.

I have a draft of a letter to NAICS which could help you in your comment.

You can see the call here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-60.pdf

If you are interested in collaborating on comments about NAICS, in particular, comments about markets and merchants, please contact me.

San Francisco - April - see the attachment! see you there!

I received this email today from Nikhil, one of the undergraduates applying for money to start a new market in STL:

Thanks you very much for your letter of recommendation. It has helped us become selected as finalists for the grant! We will be giving presentations to the committee on April 3rd and plan on doing more interviews and research up until then.

Thanks again and I hope the flu has finally left you alone!

- Nikhil Agrawal

LETS HOPE THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL IN THAT PRESENTATION!

March 2, 2009

BBC News has great series from differen types of outdoor style
marketplaces around the world. This is being broadcast in
segments on its BBC World News on TV and is available to see
on the Internet at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7907335.stm

The series is titled: “Fruits of Crisis” and also “Global Markets Feel the Downturn.”

Several of the markets report business is booming. Vendors comment
that customers are going back to the basics.

Video reports come from Beijing, Dubai, Lagos, London Mumbai, Buenos
Aires, Johannesburg; and audio-only reports are from a Moscow flea
market, Cairo camel market, Australian cattle market, and Addis Ababa grain market.

-- Steve Balkin, Roosevelt University, sbalkin-AT-roosevelt.edu