Marketplaces as an Urban Development Strategy

摘要

Marketplaces are much more than the commercial gathering places that city authorities sometimes take them to be. They are flexible spatial and temporal organizations that provide vivid and inclusive public spaces. As sites of interactions of flows of people, goods and information, marketplaces facilitate an improvised and spontaneous synergy of people and communities, which is at the core of everyday life of the city. Marketplaces, furthermore, provide fresh and affordable food for residents, economic opportunities for those with less access to the labour market, and places to mingle and socialize in areas that lack such facilities.