Urban Informality - A Railway Market in Thailand

Marketers waiting for the train to pass. (Image source)

The Mae Klong Railway Market is an amazing example of the city as a symbiotic adaptive organism. During my research on informal markets I came across the market in the city of Mae Klong, 70 km outside of Bangkok for the first time. After some research I realised that the videos for the market have been quite successful YouTube hits. But as I could only find entries on travel blogs and travel magazines I decided to pick it up and share it herewith. In case you haven’t seen the videos do check them out below.

Mae Klong Railway Market is known as Talad-Rom-Hoob (dtà-làat rôm hùp ตลาดร่มหุบ) in Thai which translates something like collapsible shady market. The name refers to the distinctiveness of this market: located directly on and next to the railway tracks, once the train arrives the marketers pull back their awnings and umbrellas to let the train pass. Immediately after the train has passed the market gets reconfigured and the sales continue. The only indicators of the spectacle are the train tracks which are then used as the circulation food paths of the market.

Container ‘Mall’ – An Example of Urban Informality in Odessa

all images taken from the amazing series by Ukrainian photographer Kirill Golovchenko

The 7KM Market is probably Europe’s most extraordinary market, partly with the air of a bazaar, partly post-soviet retail eldorado, it mainly consists out of shipping containers. Its atmosphere has nothing in common with the recently opened shipping container pop-up shopping mall in East London - but probably has been inspirational thereof.