Pyle

Market Locations in Mexico City Author(s): Jane Pyle Source: Revista Geogrfica, No. 73 (Dezembro de 1970), pp.
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Market Locations in Mexico City

Jane Pyle
The supply of the basic necessities of everyday living to the urban population of Mexico City is in part effected through public markets that are located in all parts of the city. A glance at a map showing their locations (Fig. 1) gives an impression of relatively even distributionof public markets but a wide variation in their sizes, as measured by the number of vendors for whom a market is planned. The large markets in the city center stand out and a strange word in the legend provokes a search for the tianguis, which are found in peripheral areas. Tianguis, derived from the Aztec word for market, denotes a periodic, outdoor meeting of vendors. The widespread distributionof public markets provides high accessibility to potential patrons, but the variation in size is not so easily accounted for. Four factors are found to be important in explaining the varying number of vendors in the markets: 1) changes in population density, 2) an ordering of goods and services, as in a central
60
Fig. 1-
Locations of markets and tianguis in Mexico City, 1965.
61 place hierarchy, 3) alternative means of distributing convenience goods, and 4) non-economic, especially historical and political, reasons. Each of these is of some importance; yet none predominates to provide a single predictive indicator for market distribution.
Accessibility
Two interpretationsof accessibility are clearly demonstrated in the map of market locations: markets are accessible because of widespread distribution; and large, centrally located markets are easily reached from all parts of the city. The distances separating each of the 160 market buildings from its nearest neighbor, regardless of size, range from 300 meters to 3.5 km.1 The median of the measured distances is 900 meters and the variation is small; two-thirdsof the distances are between 630 meters and 1.25 km. With the realization that customers on the average need travel less than half a kilometerto purchase their daily needs for food, one describes the markets as being accessible. With limited storage or refrigerationfacilities, and from the habit of centuries, the shopping trip is often a daily one. A second assessment of the relative ease of access involves distances between a market and all potential customers in the city. Central locations minimize the effortneeded to reach markets from outlying areas, partly because of geometry, largely because transportationroutes converge on the city center. Other large markets, not central to the entire city may still be focal points for a smaller area and their importance increased because of the congestion of the city center that reduces its accessibility.
Population Density An increased concentrationof markets of a larger total number of vendors appears to be correlated with greater population density. Figure 2 shows the distribution of population in Mexico City in i960. A concentration of population appears in a wide band north and west of the Zcalo and central business district,where also is found a liberal sprinklingof larger markets. A second concentration of population is noted south of Chapultepec Park in the Tacubaya area. The larger empty spaces on the map include Chapultepec Park and smaller parks and playing fields, industrial blocks, the
Measurements are based on straightline distances between mapped locations, thereby underestimating traveling distance especially between outlying markets.
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Fig. 2 -
Distribution of population in Mexico City, I960.
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railroad station and airport, and the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco housing project, which was under construction when the census was taken in 1960. Since the average distance between markets is about one kilometer, the relationship between population density and market size may be tested by comparing the number of vendors in a market to the population within half a kilometerof it. The comparison was completed for a 25% random sample of the markets, and a weak relationship was found between population and market size (Fig. 3). Positive correlation is not high (r- .36) and striking anomalies are present. Markets with 125 vendors have within half a kilometer populations ranging from 5,000 to 30,000; so do markets with 300 vendors.
Ordering of Goods and Services
Variation in market size is doubtfullytied to a marketing hierarchy.Types of goods observed for sale in the markets are remarkable similar, regardless of the size of the market or the neighborhood in which it is located. Observations were borne out by examination of permits issued to vendors by the Department of Markets of the Federal District. About 40% of the vendors deal in fresh fruits,vegetables, and dried chiles; 13% sell meat; and 14% sell clothing and dry goods. Housewares, grains and canned goods, dairy products, prepared foods, and flowers constitute most of the rest of the goods sold. The variety of goods is in part restrictedby administrativeregulation.2 For an analysis of the ordering of goods and services in the public markets, still more critical than the lack of variety in goods sold is the absence of increasing complexity in market operations. In a marketing hierarchy, this increasing complexity would logically be the addition of wholesaling activities rather than the addition of goods sold at retail (Philbrick; Luckermann, p. 21), although the concept of thresholds requires the addition of goods as well (Berry, pp. 36-37). Only at two of the large markets (La Merced and Jamaica) are wholesaling activities present in addition to retailing. Vendors come to these markets to purchase goods for sale at other markets n the city. Even so, these two markets are by no means the only source, or even the major source, of goods sold by vendors in the outlying markets. To aid in the search for a relationship between number and types of business and the size of a market, a matrix of the incidence and number of vendors of 58 types 2 The Department of Marketsmaintains two listsof goods and servicesfor whichvendorpermits contains255 itemsand the other,for "new markets/' may be issued.One, for"old markets/' has 51 categories.Permits examinedused only 70% of the authorized categories,and a few permits slippedby in unauthorized categories.
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2000
o * 500S
i -000;
* 600S

t *
500-
-S
400-
: 30j *
0
*o
i 300-
I
z
200,oo#
'// #
20
.#.1 %
2 O (thousands)
30 km.
40
rJ
oU
o
15 Types
25
30 (goods
35 sold)
40
r-J '
Population
within h
of business
Fig. 3 -
Relationship betwen (left) size of market and population within half a kilometer,and (right) types of business.
65
of business was prepared from a sample of 48 markets for which reasonably accurate data were available. Of the 58 types of business found in at least two markets, seven are found n all markets and seven more are absent n only one or two (in some cases contraryto observations). By plotting the incidence of types in a market with the corresponding number of vendors, a clustering appears in a scatter diagram (Fig. 4). The three largest markets of the sample have 39 or 40 types of business, the middle forty-three markets between 23 and 33 types, and the two smallest have 14 and 18 types. If these three groups be tentatively considered as representing three levels of a hierarchy,examination of the types of business typically associated with each group should reveal types of goods with similar ranges, according to the central place model (Berry, Barnum and Tenant, pp. 71-72). 3 However, no clear pattern emerges in the kinds of business found in markets at the the suggested levels. "Artificial flowers" is the only category of good found in the large markets that does not also appear in some smaller ones; it is, however, a good expected to have greater ranges and thereforeto be found at higher-orderlevels of a hierarchy."Spices," which would be expected to have greater ranges, are found in the smallest market, in three of the middle order, and in none of the three largest markets. "Linens" and "hosiery," like "spices," are sold by specialists in markets in upper socio-economic levels neighborhoods, where income levels will support higher-order goods, but size of market is not a diagnostic for their presence. An order of entryof business types is not evident from inspection of the matrix,despite the clustering that appears with number of types of business and size of market. More significantthan the clustering is that markets ranging in size from 100 to 500 vendors have only a narrow range of businesses. The addition of more vendors does not bring an influx of new types, although higher levels of a central place hierarchy are expected to have large step-increases in types of business (Berry, p. 39).
Alternative Means of Distribution Although vendors in the public markets, both open and enclosed, constitute approximately 20% of the total numberemployed in commerce in Mexico City, 4 they are not 3
Presumably, goods such as fruits and vegetables have attenuated ranges; customers are not willing to travel far to purchase them, and frequent purchases provide for low thresholds or early order of entry. Goods such as clothing or jewelry are less frequently purchased, customers are presumably willing to travel farther for them, and they should be characteristic of larger markets but not of smaller ones. About 52,000 vendors are accommodated in the markets, another 10,000 in the tianguis. Population 8 years and older economically active in commerce in the Federal District n 1960 was reported to be 305,990 (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).
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Fig. 4 -
Locations of supermarkets in Mexico City, 1965.
67
the only source through which the urban population is supplied with everyday needs. An important source in some parts of the city is a federal agency, the Compaa Nacional de Subsistancias Populares (CONASUPO) , which maintains a fleet of vans that deliver low-priced grocery items to low-income neighborhoods. The CONASUPO vans not only supply low-density areas but also make weekly stops in higher-density areas of low and middle income groups, where the scheduled stop is often beside a market building. The vans are a source of irritationto the market administrators, who feel that they should be serving only areas where there are no markets. Everyday needs in low-income and low-density parts of the city are also supplied by peddlers, street stands, and home gardens. Peddlers are more often encountered in these areas than elsewhere, calling out to announce their wares, which are usually pottery and clothing. One often sees tables set up at courtyard gates, on which are displayed small stocks of fruits,vegetables, candies, or other goods. In outlying areas of the city where density is low, many households cultivate kitchen gardens and raise animals. In higher-income neighorhoods, less labor-intensive retailing establishments than the public markets are found (Fig. 5). The self-service grocery store and discount house are relatively recent innovations in retailing in Mexico City, and reflect the increasing use of private automobiles instead of a dependence on public transportation. They also show a receptivityto innovations and acquaintance with U.S. marketing methods by retailers and consumers alike. Eesides the supermarkets,peddlers and CONASUPO, there are many small shops specializing in the same kinds of goods that are sold in the markets; however, these are so widespread that they cannot be judged to affect the distributionof markets.
Non -Economic
Factors
For both historical and political reasons, some of the markets are larger than others, and additional markets are maintained where they might otherwise be displaced. That markets flourished in Tenochtitln the Aztec capital, is well documented. In the rebuilding of the city by the Spaniards, two principal marketplaces were established, one in the main plaza and the other, primarilyfor Indians, in the Plaza of Vizcanas (San Juan). The first has maintained its preeminence through moves in 1791 to the Plaza del Volador, in 1880 to the Plaza of La Merced, and finally to the streets where the present La Merced was built in 1957. The second marketplace remained in and around the Plaza of San Juan until 1957, when it was split among four buildings erected as near the formerlocation as land could be obtained. These two markets, among the largest in the city, are cited as examples of how early market locations have remained important,even as commercial properties replaced residential neighborhoods so that market size is disproportionateto the population living nearby.
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charged to vendors,constructionof buildings,and regulation Through decisions on tariffs of the tianguis, the Federal District government exercises direct controls over the system of public markets. For the most part these controls are protective of the system. Fees are modest, allowing to remain in business vendors who might otherwise not prosper. The construction of buildings gives to market locations a rigidityor permanence that tianguis and street markets lack. Especially is this true since 1955, when an extensive building program began to replace the many street markets. Formerly,markets on occasion did disappear, some replaced by government buildings and other by commercial establishments. A third kind of government decision that affects markets is the regulation of the tianguis. Unlike the other decisions, it is not protective of the system, for the tianguis in effect colonize new market locations. Strict suppression of periodic markets would certainly result in short-range hardships to the consumers who patronize them and, if markets were to remain part of the distributionsystem, would necessitate planning by the administrationthat is now worked out by trial and error by the tiangueros. The avowed justification for supporting markets is that they permit consumers to obtain goods at lower prices. Housewives demand that markets be maintained to keep living costs within reason. The question of balancing higher public costs of providing indirectsubsidy of vendors against the expected higher living costs, even with policing of private enterprise, is far beyond the scope of this paper. The interplayof economic, social, historical, and political factors in the explanation for markets and their locations is not simple. From whichever base one starts in the search for understanding, one is led to the others. If historicaland cultural explanations are insufficient without support of economic arguments,it is also true that an economic explanation must be buttressed with non-economic considerations.
Resumen
La satisfaccin de las necesidades bsicas diarias de la poblacin de la ciudad de Mxico se efecta em parte por medio de los mercados pblicos, localizados en numerosas zonas de ella. La amplia distribucinde los mercados pblicos proporciona una gran facilidad de acceso a los clientes potenciales. No es fcil, sin embargo, explicar la variedad de su tamaos. Se han establecido cuatro factores a fin de justificar la diversidad numrica de vendedores en los mercados: 1 ) cambios en la densidad de la poblacin, en que los mercados mayores se encuentran en general en las zonas ms densamente pobladas; 2) pedidos de productos y servicios, como en la jerarqua de un lugar central, y venta de mayor nmero de tipos de productos en los mercados mayores; 3) variedad de medios para distribuirproductos de confort, como son los supermercadosy las ventas subsidiadas por los gobiernos: y 4) razones no econmicas, especialmente de carcter histricoy poltico. Cada uno de estos factores tiene alguna importancia, pero ninguno de ellos predomina de manera que represente una previsin para la distribucinen el mercado.
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References
Berry, B.J.L. Geography of Market Centers and Retail Distribution.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967.
Berry, B.J.L., Barnum, H.G., and Tennanr,
Behavior, Papers and Proceedings of the Regional Science Association, 9: 65-106, 1962.
R.J.
Retail
Location
and
Consumer
Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Vili Censo General de Poblacin, 1960. Mxico, D. F.: Secretara de indstria y Comercio, Direccin General de Estadstica, 1963. Luckermann, Fred. Empirical Expressions of Nodality and Hiararchy in a Circulation Manifold, East Lakes Geographer, Summer 1966. 17-44. Philbrick, Allen K. Principles of Areal Functional Organization in Regional Human 1957. Geography, Economic Geography, 33:229-336,

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Market Locations in Mexico City Author(s): Jane Pyle Source: Revista Geogrfica, No. 73 (Dezembro de 1970), pp.

Market Locations in Mexico City

Locations of markets and tianguis in Mexico City, 1965.

Distribution of population in Mexico City, I960.

Ordering of Goods and Services

Locations of supermarkets in Mexico City, 1965.

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