Garage Sale Boom
Anyone can sell. You don't need to have a fancy cart and shrink wrapped goods to sell things outside. Nor do you need training in business or public safety. Turns out that all you need is a drive way and some things you no longer need.
With a 20 year boom having come to an end, folks everywhere are looking for quick ways to earn some extra cash. Having gorged ourselves on consumer goods for years, people are now looking to unload them. As I told New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown, "This is the perfect storm for garage sales." Ms. Brown wrote an article about the garage sale boom that appeared in the New York Times on Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/25garage.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=garage&st=cse&oref=slogin
Garage sales are another example of open air commerce. Such sales help demonstrate the virtues of selling things outside. Homeowners all over the country are avoiding middle men such as the pawn shop and second hand store and selling things themselves from their own property. The cost savings are passed on to thrifty consumers. It's a win-win for buyers and sellers alike.
The practice of garage sales is not without controversy, though. People moved to the suburbs not only to get away from the congestion of the center city, but also to get away from commerce. Zoning segregated residential uses, especially single family homes, from retail stores and other kinds of commerce. While having a garage sale after Spring cleaning is a time-honored tradition, many communities were worried that multiple sales over the course of a year would make suburbia feel less, well, suburban and more like the city. Burbank, California, for example, limits garage sales at individual properties to 3 per year. Patricia Brown's NY Times article identified other communities doing the same. Even where cities have not restricted them, many home owner associations do. These neighborhoods once seemed so attractive for keeping out the garage sale rif raff. In this time of depressed home values they now seem like gilded cages. We have become the rif raff. We want to sell it all.
Hopefully the garage sale boom will lead to some serious reflection on the viability of outdoor space for temporary markets. The driveway is not just for the family car. Nor is the sidewalk just for pedestrian circulation. These outdoor spaces are also useful places for people to meet and trade. Here's to spaces with shared uses. Three cheers for the boom in garage sales.