Peanuts, Roasted on Site

To catch you up on some interesting California color: Last Saturday, when Bill and I were in the Bay Area, we visited a local institution—the San Jose Flea Market. I made it the topic of this week’s Radio Road Trip (listen at http://wpsu.org/radio/features.php) (And yes, Don, the pictures get bigger if you click on ‘em!)

Why it’s cool: This is the NATION’S LARGEST open-air market: about 2000 vendors assembled on a 120-acre site (that’s 60 blocks worth of Manhattan, to give you a sense of scale).

The Flea Market has an interesting history. Wa . .aa..aay back in 1960, a guy who worked for San Jose’s solid-waste disposal unit was dismayed by all the great stuff he saw ending up dumping in landfills. At the time, so-called “swap meets” (you know ‘em as yard sales, garage sales, etc.) were something of a novelty in Los Angeles. As the story goes, this fellow saw them as the possible solution to the waste problem in San Jose. So he traveled to LA, learned how to organize a really BIG swap meet, flew home, bought some local farmland, on the cheap, and invited about 20 vendors to set up shop.

The thing was a success and it just kept growing. Forty-seven years later, picture the biggest county fair or state fair you have ever been to and then multiply by about 100: the little ethnic food booths, the playgrounds for the kiddies, and the neat rows of white-canopied stands . . . except, instead of arcade games, these stands sell luggage, and plastic packages of tube sox, and silk flowers, and salon hair products, and car parts, and music CDs, and t-shirts, all at bargain basement prices.

At the very center of the Flea Market is Produce Row, California’s largest Farmer’s Market, a quarter-mile of fresh fruits and vegetables, including lots of exotic produce you wouldn’t find in the typical Safeway, such as cactus pads and sugar cane and thousand-year-old-eggs.

The people we saw at the market (both vendors and shoppers) were a regular United Nations . . . mostly Hispanic but also Southeast Asian (women in silk saris trimmed with gold or Muslim headscarves), Japanese, Chinese and Korean, African-American, and Caucasians of all types.

Apparently the Flea Market is an interesting economic phenomenon—not only is it a place where the low-income populace can find bargains even better than Wal-mart, but it’s a way for recent immigrants and blue-collar members of San Jose’s population to launch a small business without much capital. Obviously the rent for a stall at a flea market is much cheaper than the rent for a traditional storefront. Many of the vendors here do quite well and stay in the same location for years or decades, with loyal customers who come back every week. Sunday is the big shopping day when people come to stock up.

The market is controversial, though, and its days are numbered. It generates a lot of traffic, and it doesn’t generate a lot of income for the city. Obviously it’s a big chunk of real estate in an area where real estate is worth a fortune. Also, the city is trying to bring in a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit Station). All this adds up to a recent decision by the city to grant a request by the property owners to re-zone to allow for a housing development and shopping center on the site. The rationale is that the new development will put more population close to the proposed location for the BART station, thus attracting federal dollars—and also generate jobs and income for the city.

But the 2000 small business people who will be dislocated are understandably upset. The market will stay in its current location through Feb. 2010 and the owner and city are trying to find an alternate location for it, though with the price of real estate, who knows what will happen . . .