“Marketing” Places: The Role of Urban Retail Markets in Democratic Heritage Movements

This paper will analyze the role that communal shopping spaces have played in debates over social inclusion and place-making in British heritage and memory studies. I will begin by examining the 1970s campaign to save Chesterfield market place and market hall from redevelopment. Private developers’ encroachment on the market site precipitated the Chesterfield Civic Society, prompted debate in the local press, and elicited attention from architecture experts. Coinciding with the promotion of the 1975 European Architectural Heritage Year, the Chesterfield campaign benefited from the intersection of international advocacy and local mobilization. I will argue that the resilience of this populist shopping space stemmed from the market’s multiple social meanings: not only did its competitive prices serve local shoppers in an inflationary era, but it was also the physical heart of their self-consciously “historic” center.

In the 1970s, Chesterfield residents accused their local council of selling the people’s market to the highest bidder. In recent years, however, activists have turned their attention to global capital as an intruder in neighborhood commercial networks. The proliferation of luxury shopping developments in Leeds, Brixton, and east London has threatened traditional markets, which fit uneasily in the neoliberal service economy. Now, residents see local government as a crucial player in stemming city center and neighborhood gentrification. In reading the contemporary cases against historical precedent, I will argue that in an era of recession and widening wealth inequality, the public market is a salient rallying point for social democratic ideals.