In a Salon article titled “Fight the farmers market backlash!” Henry Grabar outlines the fate of traditional central markets, which sadly are becoming a dying breed.

Long the heart, soul and larder for every great city on the planet, central marketplaces are vanishing from modern life.

"As wholesale markets were reimagined, a parallel shift occurred in retail food delivery, as one-stop-shops replaced butchers and bakers, and supermarkets absorbed the customer base of traditional markets. Now, online shopping in turn is eroding the support of brick-and-mortar groceries. Urbanites have fewer encounters with the food supply today than at any point in history.

Bucking that trend is the West Side Market.

“That’s not to say that permanent, public markets are a thing of the past. Those that have survived, like Cleveland’s West Side Market, have ridden the current wave of popularity through financial difficulties.”

Read the complete article here.