Author Archives: Projects In Place

The Public Artisan Market aims to promote economic development, foster social connectivity, and strengthen food sovereignty in one of Vancouver’s oldest community by providing a safe and welcoming place for a diversity of vendors, local residents, and visitors to meet, interact, and do business.

Aware of the challenges this community faces, many organizations have sought to support these positive and promising characteristics in ways that are inclusive of current residents. In this spirit, the initiative to create a public artisan market in the community sprang from evidence that public markets can promote public health, create active and safe public space, renew neighborhoods, bring together diverse people, and provide entrepreneurial opportunities which benefit the local economy.

The Projects in Place Public Artisan Market is imagined as an open air public market. Market vendors would sell a variety of goods including locally grown produce, prepared foods, arts and crafts, as well as re-purposed and found items. Street performers and community group information tables could further enhance the atmosphere of the event.
Unique in terms of its diversity of vendors, location, and mandate, the Public Artisan Market provides not only a direct marketing venue for local entrepreneurs, but also a public space that attracts a diversity of people to the host neighborhood, conveys a sense of community pride to visitors, creates legitimate employment opportunities for local low-income residents, and improves local food sovereignty by providing a source of fresh, healthy produce and prepared foods in the heart of the inner city. Continue reading →