10. Here Today Gone Tomorrow: The Invisible Boundaries of Periodic Markets

The global spread of the supermarket and the shopping center is causing a convergence in consumer patterns in cities all over the world. Nevertheless, market place trading is continuing to keep its key position as a common means of retail change. Turkey and Istanbul in general are no different from this trend. Over the past three decades or so, urban studies have witnessed cultural shifts in physical sites for commodity exchange as symbolic territories. With their invisible boundaries neighborhood, periodic markets in Istanbul are among these territories. Challenging the view of these retail channels are used out of economic necessity, urbanites from all income and socio-economic levels use periodic markets to satisfy their needs for food, clothing and various other items without considering the proximity of their locations. Periodic markets are based on location, mobility and periodic time schedule patterns. Some of the periodic markets have been operating within their known locations since centuries. Most periodic markets have similar products, similar marketing patterns, similar architecture and even similar olfactory characteristics defining their temporary versus permanent boundaries. Periodic markets, in some cases described as temporary organized chaos in the literature, are still meaningful and part of traditional life style in Turkey and Istanbul.