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.

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.