Folia Geographica 10. sējums - Latvijas Universitāte

DEVELOPMENT OF PLACES AND REGIONSIn Riga, such a trend toward informal trade occurred most clearly in and around thetraditional Central Market, the former central Collective Market (Centrālais kolhozu tirgus),whose forerunner had already developed as the urban market in and around the historicallyprotected market halls south of Riga’s Old Town since 1930. Up until the summer of 1992, thatmain market dealt primarily in basic goods: vegetables, fruit, cheese, fish and meat. With thestrong rise in the cost of living, the ambulatory trade which addressed the subject of mediumtermneeds soon developed there. This new socio-economic phenomenon emerged nearly at thesame time in almost all other transition countries of the former Eastern Bloc. Particularlypensioners and unemployed persons (mainly women) saw themselves forced to sell their ownmanual work (e.g., needle-works), to offer domestic animals, and even to offer up for sale theirfew personal belongings. In Riga, in the years 1993 to 1996, these people stood mostly in a tightrows at the edge of the access roads to the main market. In direct proximity to the market halls,small market stands for the sale of new textiles (laundry, shirts and jeans) developed. This newarrangement was supplemented by the sale of liquor, music cassettes and particularly cigarettes,which were often sold out of old campers. Since the year 1993 the market salespersons havebeen allowed simply designed sheet-metal structures, which protected them from the elements.Altogether the more or less uncontrolled propagation of the ambulatory and partlystationary trade led after a short time to completely chaotic spatial structures and untenablesafety conditions, the responsible city administration, in co-operation with the manager of theCentral Market (likewise a local politician!), decided in the year 1996 to integrate an open areaat the south of the market. By this measure it was possible to increase the market areaconsiderably and to shift the market stalls from the narrow lanes between the market halls intothe newly created area. Comparatively attractive sales kiosks were also furnished there for thefirst time, which can be interpreted as additional legalisation of the formerly informal trade bythe city administration. Meanwhile ambulatory trade within the range of the market wasofficially forbidden. At the same time some adjacent brick buildings, which were used aswholesale stores before, were converted to retail trade use. The market area now has afunctional spatial arrangement. In the historically protected market halls and the surroundingareas, the traditional sale of fresh food takes place; in the area south of it, mainly non-foodarticles (with emphasis on the clothing sector) are supplied. The observed visitor frequency isvery high in the entire market, but it is substantially less in the separate southern area than in thefood market. The preponderance of customers comes from the younger and middle age groupsof the population.From an urban and economic geographic point of view, the enlargement of the CentralMarket area caused a very big disadvantage for the newly developing retail trade outlets in theCity Centre. The growing influence of the Central Market led to a very unstable situation in theformal economy of retail trade with a high fluctuation of shops inside the premises and to acontinuous uncertainty concerning the economic activities in the central part of Riga. The futurespatial development there is rather unpredictable. Because the economic position of the CentralMarket was strengthened, the streets in proximity to the entrance of the market and around thetrain station (especially Marijas/A. Čaka) also gained favour, but the more peripheral locationsalong Brīvības lost importance during the second half of the 1990s.SummaryThe post-socialist development of central Riga has been described through the analyses ofa multiplicity of determinants that influenced the operating structure of retail trade and thespatial structures (Figure 2). Only through understanding the combination of these two bundlesof factors, which caused changes during different phases of the transition process in varyingdegrees, is it possible to explain why the changes in retail trade were extremely fast, especiallyin the first years, and why the location pattern in the city of Riga is characterised by acompetition among the Old Town, the City Centre, and the neighbouring Central Market – acompetition that has not yet been decided. An excess of business premises clearly predominatesdowntown, and the business areas along the main traffic axes tend to fluctuate strongly. In all,no clear development of hierarchically arranged supply structures (e.g., in the form of mainbusiness areas) can be yet identified.87