Farmers Markets in the Post‐Industrial City

A new politics of consumption is evident in the economic behavior of educated, middle‐class baby‐boomer women no longer willing to accept a food culture prescribed for them by the global food establishment. It is proposed that the farmers market represents a deliberate class‐based response to wrestle back control of the local through supporting farmers and post‐industrial downtown storeowners. These “femivores” of the marketplace are utilizing their consumer power to participate in a new, dynamic form of community‐building that re‐embeds the market within local narratives of social sustainability and resource management. Further, I propose that it is through the market exchange that citizens of all classes become visible and the possibility for a class consciousness tied to economic behavior arises. Moreover, the process of restructuring occurring in Midwestern post‐industrial cities may be just the incubator needed to nurture these place‐based socioeconomic behaviors. [Farmers market, informal economy, post‐industrial city, consumer behavior, middle class]