"If you build them, they will come."
While that applies to baseball fields, especially in the movies, if done right, farmers markets can serve a similar appetite.
As you might imagine, I've seen a lot of farmers markets when I travel. Some of them are very small in small towns, but I'm more intrigued by the efforts of medium-sized cities.
Small towns usually have the advantage of space and not too many customers. Large cities need several markets just to cover the territory. Medium-sized cities need a central location that is also sufficiently appealing.
I first started to think about this idea when I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2009. The 2011 population numbers for the Halifax Regional Municipality was just under 400,000. Perhaps Halifax isn't even a medium-sized city, though it is the largest city for hundreds of kilometers or miles around.
Halifax farmers market is a tourist destination (2012)
The city had an indoor market that wove around several small rooms full of produce. The situation wasn't ideal, but the presentation was as clever as could be done under the circumstances. As a tourist, I was enthralled at the enthusiasm. But if I lived there, the structure would eventually be a drag.
The folks in Halifax told me that they were building a permanent farmers market at an old airplane hangar on the waterfront. I passed by the old airplane hangar later in the trip. The amount of space was wonderful, but you could easily have doubts. The hangar wasn't in great shape. The space did offer plenty of parking; while Halifax has a good bus system, trains are not an option.
The building was right on the water. Halifax gets its share of tropical storms and an occasional hurricane. I saw the damage from one hurricane, still there many years later. I can vouch for at least one tropical storm; you don't get to see rain like that too often.
The location also was near Pier 21, a museum that reflects Halifax's role as the "Ellis Island" for Canadian immigrants.
From this slideshow, you can see that the structure is beautiful. The setting is ideal right on the water, and the fact that the farmers market doubles as a tourist experience is another advantage of a well-done farmers market.
We see cities of all sizes building sports stadiums to satisfy some community bond and need and to add to the financial bottom line. Farmers markets can't compete with major professional sports. However, if proper planning and execution are part of the game plan, farmers markets can make a community better, with healthier citizens as a side benefit.
photo credit: James Ingram/Lydon Lynch Architects
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