Friends!

Openair is going through another redesign to make it more functional for academics, vendors and market managers, and policy makers.

Stay with us as we improve! The redesign will be complete by the end of May!

all best,
Alfonso

So just what is it about markets that I am passionate about? Part of it is the history of people and how we’ve always used markets as a place to not only purchase food and other items, but also as a place to connect with others, a place to build and share community. In interviewing shoppers, vendors and residents in my summer research in Los Angeles, people consistently indicated how important “their” market was for building community. Even in the car “crazy” culture of Los Angeles people came to markets to connect with others and feel a sense of community.

My feeling is that markets help to build and empower the communities which they are located in. This should not be taken for granted. Creating “ownership” on the part of the customers and vendors and managers is vital to success. There is little doubt that markets help people become more connected to their communities and managers need to be mindful of this and constantly thinking about how to also connect with the larger community, through having community message boards, information about community events and newsletters at the market.

I’m so happy to be blogging about public markets, one of my favorite things in life, something that I would have trouble living without. Originally from Los Angeles and now living in New Delhi, India for at least two years, I’m a CUSO-VSO Canada volunteer, http://www.cuso-vso.org/. I will be working for the National Trust, http://thenationaltrust.in/, an Indian governmental organization that works with people living with disabilities. The Trust has over 800 partner organizations throughout India and I will be helping them with fundraising. I was last in India in 2006 as a tourist. I had wanted to come back to live and kept rupees in my wallet for the day that I would return!

I’ve been a market “nut” or “fruit” or “veggie” for over 20 years, having first come into contact with markets when I worked for the City of Oakland-Office Of Economic Development and Employment in 1987 when I became the Market Manager for the Housewives Market, now located in the Swan’s Marketplace http://www.swansmarket.com/. I was very fortunate in being able to attend the very first PPS Public Market Conference in 1987 in Seattle and since that time I’ve beenPassionate About Markets. Throughout the years, I’ve also attended many other public market conferences and seminars.

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.