urbanology » Blog Archive » Medina Market /New York

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The Institute sharpened its methodology through years of fieldwork in New York, Bogota, Tokyo, Istanbul, New Delhi, Goa and Mumbai. It has offices in Dharavi, Mumbai and Aldona, Goa. In Dharavi, the Institute studies homegrown practices in the fields of housing, artisanship and trade, and physical and theoretical spaces where these fields converge. In Goa, it looks at the transforming role of villages within larger economic, cultural, ecological and urban systems.

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Medina Market /New York

June 2005

This proposal lays out a plan for a public market in the heart of Brooklyn in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, also known as Bed-Stuy.

Bed-Stuy is one of the strongholds of black culture in the US. Many people around the world have heard about it in hip-hop songs and seen its streets and stoops in Spike Lee movies. Culture is the most abundant and least exploited resource of Bed-Stuy. Urban tourism is a booming industry and in every world city, from London to Tokyo, passing by Madrid and Paris, flea markets are magnets for tourists. No one spends a week in London without passing through Portobello Market. The multi-ethnicity of vendors is precisely what makes it so interesting. New York City has nothing like Portobello Market, although it has everything needed to do as well or better than London. The community in Bed-stuy has a unique chance of preserving and developing its cultural capital, and avoid selling its image to big businesses as happened in Harlem. This proposal suggests that Medina Market in Bed-Stuy could represent a commitment of the community to grassroots, bottom-up type of development, which is just starting to be recognized all around the world as the most desirable path towards higher living standards, inclusiveness and sustainability.

www.medinamarket.net