AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

58 SERGIO FERRAGUT
SYNERGIES WITH THE BUSINESSES IN THE PERIPHERY
There are a number of shops that offer a wide variety of products and
services located in the streets surrounding the market. Some of these
shops have been in the neighborhood for a few years but most of them
have opened recently to serve the huge number of customers that arrive
to the area when the market is open. The products and services they sell
complement the variety of products and services already offered in the
market. Most of the owners of shops located in the periphery of the
market interviewed during the research, mentioned that the majority of
sales take place when the market is open, while some of the owners mentioned
that they do not open their shops on non-market-days. (see appendix
1i – 1w).
The contrast of visiting the HCM area when the market is open and
when is closed is significant. When the market is closed, the few shops
that remain open are usually run by their owners only, who mostly spend
the day reorganizing or cleaning the shop waiting for the next day when
the market is open and customers abound (Hussein, Money Transfer
Service, 2009, first hand interview).
As Pieterse sustained, “agglomeration increases the productivity of a
wide-ranging number of economic activities in urban areas. Essentially,
agglomeration allows firms to experience the benefits of both economies
of scale and scope” (Pieterse, 2000, page 8). The role of the municipality
in this process is to provide the services and legal framework for all this
actors to interact in a productive way. Agglomeration has more chances
of bringing success and positive outcomes for the actors involved, if the
local government successfully manages to regulate and facilitate the activities
and interactions among the different actors.
CONCLUSION
First there was no market; by taking the lead in becoming a central actor in
the process of establishing, regulating and administering the HCM and
the relations and interests of the various actors involved, the Municipality
of The Hague has contributed to the sustainable development of the
neighborhood and the city. In the early 1900s, nothing could have indicated
the potential of the Herman Costerstraat area, which at the time
was an empty space in the suburbs of the city considered by the private
sector as unsuitable for doing business. It was the long term vision and