ACROSS NORTH AMERICA, local boosters are whisking visitors off to places like Detroit’s beloved Eastern Market or Milwaukee’s Public Market. An eager local guide will take them to Portland’s food truck corrals or Vancouver’s Granville Island. A more reluctant host may let them tag along for a Spam musubi lunch at Honolulu’s Maunakea Marketplace or to pick through mid-century modern furniture at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, California.
Midway through a cross-country trip, the monotony of my hosts’ ideas for how best to spend a day in their city started to wear on me. Yes, yes, your city has a great food hall, a great farmer’s market, a great peddlers mall—as does every other city. But then it dawned on me that this is as it should be. Marketplaces are urban spaces par excellence, places that allow us to relish in the hustle, to see and be seen by strangers, to enjoy, as Pericles put it, all the good things of this Earth that flow into the city.
Adam Smith understood this when he suggested that man has a natural “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange.” Smith was trying to explain why markets tend to emerge wherever more than one human being can be found. We don’t spend our free time rifling through yard sales, haggling over prices, or promenading in malls because we have to—we do it because it’s inherent to who we are.
DEFYING AN UNKIND NARRATIVE
This story is from the July 2023 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July 2023 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE REAL THREAT IS AN ISOLATED CHINA
DECOUPLING FROM TRADE WILL MAKE THE U.S. POORER AND CHINA MORE TOTALITARIAN.
Against Our Own Best Souls'
SISTER HELEN PREJEAN ON HERLIFE ASA WITNESS ON DEATH ROW
'THE POLITICS HAVE COME TO US'
HOW A CHRISTIAN CHARITY IN EL PASO ENDED UP AT WAR WITH THE TEXAS GOVERNMENT FOR HELPING UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
MATERIEL LOSS
HOW THE U.S. MILITARY BUSTS ITS BUDGET ON WASTEFUL, CARELESS, AND UNNECESSARY 'SELF-LICKING ICE CREAM CONES'
'NOT A SUICIDE PACT'
HOW A 1949 SUPREME COURT DISSENT GAVE BIRTH TO A MEME THAT SUBVERTS FREE SPEECH AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
HOW MUSK CAN HELP TRUMP CUT TRILLIONS
DURING PRESIDENT DONALD Trump’s first term in office, the national debt increased by $8 trillion—due, in large part, to huge spending hikes that Congress passed and Trump signed.
THE IMPROBABLE RISE OF MAGA-MUSK
IS ELON MUSK A REACTIONARY WITHA DEFECTIVE BULLSHIT METER OR THE BEST PART OF THE SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION?
A Free-Range Family
RIGHT NOW, CHILDHOOD is intensely meh. Maybe you read the recent report in The Journal of Pediatrics that said that as kids' independence and free play have gone down, their anxiety and depression have been going up.
Educulture Wars
THE CULTURE WAR is costing school districts billions, according to a report released in October 2024 by the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access. The report surveyed superintendents at 467 school districts nationwide about extra expenditures they undertook because of increased conflict over culture war issues such as critical race theory, book chal- lenges, gender-related debates, and other politicized topics. The report estimates that such fights cost school districts around $3.2 billion during the 2023-2024 school year.
Q&A Penny Lane
PENNY LANE'S NEW Netflix documentary, Confessions of a Good Samaritan, delves into her life-changing decision to donate a kidney to a stranger. Known for her thoughtful and provocative storytelling, Lane has explored human connection and empathy in films such as Hail Satan? and The Pain of Others. Last October she spoke with Reason's Nick Gillespie and shared her emotional, physical, and philosophical experience with anonymous kidney donation and the challenges that came with it.