Over the past decade, market halls and open air food markets have become an important arena for urban regeneration. Although many of today’s European cities are essentially built around markets and fairs, these markets have now disappeared, relocated or, like other community infrastructures such as cinemas, public baths, psychiatric hospitals or prisons, lost some of […]
Search Results for: markets
This paper investigates the central role of markets in the food distribution system in Rome and their role on neighbourhoods as a local service. Firstly, an overview of the current food distribution patterns in European cities and the role that public food markets play in it is provided. The article then delves into the case study of local food markets in Rome, looking into their role in supporting local food distribution, offering local services in public assets, creating employment and ultimately affecting the neighbourhoods they are located in.
Authors: Daniela Patti, Levente Polyak, Manuel Torreson
Publication date: 2022
Published by: Eutropian GmbH, Vienna, Austria; Department of Planning, Design, and Technology of Architecture, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
With public spaces being created by the interaction of various social groups, marketplaces have traditionally constituted some of the most important public spaces, attracting people from all ways of lives and all financial capabilities. In the past decades, however, they gradually lost their role: while urban and metropolitan agriculture are flourishing, and an increasing number of […]
ANVA, the National Association for Commerce on Public Areas, is a professional association that gathers workers operating on commercial public areas. ANVA is counted among the founding members of Confesercenti and it promotes the idea of an Italian self-managed market, designed according to the market requirements, defending the expertise and the rights of professional workers.
Anna Maria Bianchi is the president of the association “carteinregola”, an initiative aimed at promoting collaboration between citizens and committees as well as other associations in Rome. Among the activities offered by “carteinregola”, Anna Maria is in charge of the initiative “We defend neighbourhood markets”, which she will present in this interview. She not only highlights […]
Rome’s transformative journey towards developing a comprehensive food policy reflects the profound influence of food on the city and its inhabitants. Inspired by international research and experiences the Rome municipality embraced a city-region food system approach, recognising the interconnectedness of urban and rural areas. Through a bottom-up process which began in 2018, diverse stakeholders united […]
Right in the heart of an inner district in Budapest lies a 7700 square metre wild, at first sight untamed green space, sandwiched between unassuming residential buildings. Walking in the area, one is surprised to find Szeszgyár, this vast ecofeminist and queer community garden behind the graffiti-filled walls, away from sight. Szeszgyár is different to […]
In the centre of Vienna, a small commercial space is trying to make a difference working with a social and sustainable oriented mission. Ois In An is a restaurant combining the inclusion of migrant women in the workplace and the promotion of sustainable food products in a warm and cosy environment. We visited Ois In […]
About one-third of the food produced worldwide gets thrown away[1]. Since its foundation in 1999, the Wiener Tafel has been providing social institutions such as women’s shelters, homeless care facilities and refugee homes with food and other goods that would otherwise have ended up in the waste bin. It is Austria’s oldest food bank and […]
Right in the heart of Turin, just next to the remains of the Roman city walls and the Porta Palatina, one of the four ancient city gates, lies Piazza della Repubblica, the largest square of the city, which is home to one of the biggest open markets in Europe, locally known as mercato di Porta […]
Article by Levente Polyak for publicspace.org, a project by the CCCB. In 1748, the Italian architect Giambattista Nolli published an ichnographic plan of Rome, documenting every building in the city and their adjacent spaces. The Pianta Grande di Roma, besides outlining all the buildings, and separating them from the surrounding public spaces, also depicted publicly […]
By Nikolas Kozloff To the extent that at least some people will be able to travel after the pandemic subsides, and haven’t gone bankrupt, how will tourism change in future? A cursory search on the internet reveals scores of articles delving into such questions. “The crises of 2020,” notes the New York Times, “…have caused […]
A four-storey historical building in the heart of Vienna that houses bicycle, woodworking and sewing workshops, a restaurant serving international cuisine and a café hosting events sounds like a hipster tourist trap. In reality, though, it is a social initiative by VinziRast, an ambitious volunteer-based organisation, that aims to give a second chance at life […]
Realising the need to create international dialogue on handling the COVID-19 crisis at the local level, Eutropian launched a weekly webinar to connect activists and experts from all parts of Europe with a broader audience. On a Sunday evening in early March, I received a few text messages. It was 8 March, and I was […]
Planning post-COVID-19 cooperative cities Building on existing efforts towards social economy We advocate for existing knowledge, policy recommendations and financial resources to be geared towards the strengthening of social and solidarity economy practices* throughout Europe. We believe that this is the way forward to not leave anyone behind. At the present time EU Member States […]
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of many disadvantaged social groups. Among these groups, refugees and asylum-seekers are particularly at risk, with limited visibility and restricted access to public services. Since 2015, Athens has become a main hub on the refugee route, facing the challenges of addressing the needs of tens of thousands of […]
With the announcement of the lock-down due to the COVID-19 people in many cities literally assaulted the supermarkets to make sure they had enough stock at home to survive the quarantine in case of food shortage. Despite this being the result of a collective anxiety due to the extraordinary situation we are living, it clearly […]
A Város Mindenkié, in English The City is for All, was established in 2009 to advocate for housing rights in Hungary. Homeless people, those experiencing housing poverty and their allies, work together to overcome homelessness in Hungary by campaigning for social housing policies and for a homeless care system and by fighting against the discrimination […]
Dynamo Velostation was opened in 2015 with the support of the Incredibol tender promoted by the Municipality of Bologna. Behind Parco della Montagnola, few hundred meters away from Bologna Central Train Station, it became an intermodal hub for urban cyclists and commuters. It provides a safe bicycle parking space and a variety of services, giving […]
Das Packhaus is a project of Paradocks an international think- and do-tank for reuse of vacant buildings inVienna. Since 2014 Das Packhaus has been showing the potential for temporary use in the city of Vienna thanks to a community of 85 companies coming from different fields. A place where companies can support each other and […]
The US presidential election results came as a surprise to many of us especially because we hadn’t encountered any testament of sweeping support towards the current president in any of our communication channels. None of our friends on Facebook seemed to support Trump, so how could he be elected? Recent public discussions have highlighted the […]
NEST is a temporary use project in the former City Library of Ghent awaiting refurbishment and a new use. The 7,000 m2 building, was given to an alliance of organisations for temporary use until construction works begin. During its year of temporary use, the building has hosted about 50 different projects and many events and […]
In the early 2000s, some cities in the Central Eastern European region began to introduce new mechanisms for citizen participation in urban development. These attempts have remained mostly sporadic however, and the possibilities of the third sector in shaping the region’s cities have remained very limited. In order to understand the reasons that hinder the […]
Southern European countries were among the hardest hit by the 2008 economic crisis. In response to the economic pressure, declining public services and drastic unemployment situation generated by the crisis and the corresponding public policies, the Southern regions of the continent became terrains of experiments in self-organisation and gave birth to new forms of the […]
Paralelní Polis is a community space organised around the notions of bitcoin and blockchain technology. Located in Prague’s upcoming Holesovice neighbourhood, it opened its doors in 2014 to provide a physical space for discussions and activities investigating the relationship between technology and self-organisation. Decidedly “state-free,” the organisation operates with private membership fees and donations, and […]
Responses to the economic crisis of 2007-2008, and ambitions to create autonomous systems of exchange generated hundreds of complementary currencies in the past decade. Created to connect local actors, help local businesses or assure financial transparency, mutual credit systems, convertible local currencies and cryptocurrencies have evolved into mechanisms used not only in socio-economic experiments, but […]
While affordable space for housing and community activities in Europe has traditionally been provided by states, public companies and private corporations, the transformation of the welfare state and labour markets in the last quarter of the 20th century has gradually caused the disintegration of these institutions. The financialisation of real estate together with the growing […]
In the past years, civic crowdfunding has become an increasingly used tool by communities to help finance their urban infrastructure projects. However, while some legal contexts encourage experiments around community finance, other national regulations categorically exclude the possibility of peer-to-peer lending or crowdinvesting, thus limiting the impact crowdfunding can have in the built environment. Jan […]
Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust was created in 2011 to address housing issues within Liverpool’s Eighth District. With the help of local activists, architects and social investors, the organisation managed to engage the Liverpool City Council as well as housing associations and cooperatives in a Community Land Trust scheme. In this scheme, the local […]
In the last decades, ownership has become a key factor of our societies and economies. As Thomas Piketty demonstrated in his recent book Capital in the Twenty First Century, the late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed the return of the primacy of wealth over work in economic benefits and ownership has become an increasingly […]
To a large extent, the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 was a result of excessive real estate speculation and the irresponsible management of investments and debts by the mainstream banking system. Already before the current crisis, a variety of new, responsible financial institutions were established according to ethical and sustainable principles in order to counterbalance […]
Madrid Agrocomposta is a circular economy project in Madrid, initiated by Plataforma Madrid Agroecológico, working on turning waste from food markets into compost to fertilise agricultural land around the city.
In 2011 a dozen young people retreated for a weekend to one of the suburbs of Hungary’s capital to discuss the alternatives of individual home-ownership, and to sketch the contours of a possible model of co-housing. By Ágnes Gagyi, Csaba Jelinek, Zsuzsanna Pósfai and Márton Szarvas for Autoportret Magazine Images by Community Living initiative
Madrid Agrocomposta is a circular economy organisation in Madrid, working on turning waste from food markets into compost to fertilise agricultural land around the city.
Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative operates in South Rotterdam’s Feijenoord area. Evolved from an art project conducted in the area by the Freehouse Foundation, the Cooperative works on bringing together existing workspaces, entrepreneurs, producers, social organisations and the market. The Cooperative began its work by mapping the unrecognised skills and competences of residents in the Afrikaanderwijk neighbourhood, suffering […]
Alianca Stará Tržnica is an NGO managing the Old Market Hall, a historic building in the centre of Bratislava. The building closed down after years of unsuccessful attempts by the municipality to keep the market alive. Years later, the market hall reopened with a redevelopment plan proposed by the Alianca, combining a food market every […]
MarktHalle Neun, Market Hall Nine, is the ninth of the 14 market halls built in Berlin, of which 8 were destroyed during WW2. Originally the market, located in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood of West Berlin, worked very well until in the 1970s the first discount supermarkets emerged. This was when ALDI, one of the biggest discount […]
Shopping online has become a common habit in our society. More and more people choose their products online and have become accustomed to this new practice. Squicity uses the virtual platform to offer to Roman consumers the products of their land, exclusively grown in the province of Rome, Rieti and Viterbo. The following interview features […]
Temporary use is a learning process of accommodating innovation and adapting needs and capacities to available resources. It offers benefits to owners and users, in terms of security, maintenance, anchor tenants and social vibe on the one side, and affordable rents and spaces on the other. And it can help shaping new forms of cooperation […]