A new market for St Louis?

Nikhil Agrawal is a double major in Biochemisty and Economics while Sumit Agarwal is an Economics Major at Washington University in St Louis. They are both also pre-med but they became involved in their campus's Habitat for Humanity chapter and that helped them learn a lot about poverty alleviation. This experience germinated in them an interest in microfinancing and small scale business. They came upon openair.org and our research and discovered in us potential collaborators to help the entrepreneurial spirit flourish in St Louis.

They are working with me and City officials to develop a new public market in St Louis and this blog will follow their efforts!

Thus far they have read some recent work done by Gregg Kettles and myself and recently published in Zoning Practice, they've read my work on the benefits of public markets (Economic Development Quarterly 1995) and they've read Jennifer Ball's work on Street Vendors (Planning Advisory Service report).

They are engaging in some basic research regarding the foot traffic in the park they've targeted for a market (http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/parks/parks_div/lucas.html) and they're engaging with city officials - let's see what happens next!

Good luck to Nikhil and Sumit (same last name, but not related)!!