Martian Chronicles
Mars Station’s Open-Air Markets:
Good or Bad for the Local Economy?
By Georgia Jacobson, Feature Editor
Whether you love them or hate them, the open-air
markets that spring up every day all over the city are here to stay. They
continue to elude the efforts of the Central Intelligence Police to shut them
down because there is no rhyme or reason to when or where the pushcart vendors
converge. It seems that any spare patch of sidewalk will do, so long as the
CIPs aren’t paying attention – indeed, many officers admit they have no issue
with the freestanding markets.
“Why should we stifle free enterprise?”
said one officer, who asked not to be identified. “People have to eat. As long
as they don’t block the trams or cause trouble, I just look the other way. They’re
set up and gone within a few hours. I see it as a win-win: good for the
vendors, good for the locals. People are just trying to survive.”
The city council feels that the
open-air markets represent unfair competition for the local merchants, who
already struggle to pay rent.
“Rent’s too high,” admitted grocer
Emil LeGur at the Dentist Street Local Market, “so I must charge ten credits
for each item, especially the fruit. It is more than most people can afford,”
he said with a sad shrug, “but what can I do? The people look for better prices
in the markets. Of course the prices are better – the thieves have no rent to
pay, no employees to pay. It is unfair, but what can I do? It is life.”
Speaking to both Mars residents and
visiting spacers who frequent the Port District, I tried to weigh people’s
opinions: are the open-air markets good or bad for the economy, and why?
Yesterday at the outskirts of a mostly
Middle-Eastern market on Spaceport Drive, I managed to get in a few words with
two young women in navy-blue flight suits, their arms loaded down with bags of
produce, while they waited for the lift to return to their ship. They introduced themselves as Heshima –
called Shima – Oryang and Idalis Sanchez, housekeeper and cook for the
passenger ship Ishmael.
“We always try to shop at the
street markets, if we can find one,” Oryang explained in her thick Ugandan
accent. “The prices are always better than the shops.”
“The quality is often better, too,”
Sanchez added. “The produce I prefer to cook with, like chili peppers,
tomatillos, avocados, and limes, cost twice as much at the grocery stores.”
“But don’t you think the open
markets are hurting the local merchants?” I asked.
Both women shrugged. “We wouldn't
be able to stay in business long if we offered only a canned or dehydrated menu
to our passengers,” Sanchez explained.
“And what about the homeless?”
Oryang said. “They would starve if there were no open markets.”
I asked her to explain.
“I have been homeless before, here,
on this station,” she said with a scowl, “as are many people now, today. Even
with a full-time job, I could barely afford a few fruits and vegetables to keep
myself and my young niece alive. If my only option had been the shops, we would
have starved to death. We would have starved,
just like my family in Kampala.”
“The open-air markets save lives,”
Oryang added fiercely. “I am sorry the local shops cannot compete with the
prices, but that is not our concern. Excuse us.”
With that parting remark, they got
on the lift. Undeterred, I spoke to one of the vendors in the open-air market
the Ishmael crew had just visited. He
identified himself only as Abdul and got defensive when I asked him about the
wheels of Wisconsin cheddar on his cart. (continued on page 7)
