In Downtown Santa Ana, we have worked with local businesses and communities to create access to public space to open a series of public markets, including The Blue Lot, which hosts community favorites like Gente Market, Patches and Pins, at the Spurgeon Paseo, and Native Harvest Farmers Market. At Second Street Promenade, we have hosted the Witch Walk. On Bush Street, we have hosted The Co-op; we have also supported The Alternative Bazaar, Golden Years Vintage Market, Patchwork Festival, The Pup Parade, and the monthly First Saturday Artwalk. We recognize that public markets are not just places of commerce. Successful markets help grow and connect urban and rural economies. They encourage local development, build the local tax base, and keep money in the local neighborhood. Public markets also offer low-risk business opportunities for vendors and feed money back into the local and rural economies where farmers and other vendors grow, raise, and produce their products to bring to market.

The spin-off benefits of markets are numerous. From increasing access to fresh, healthy food to providing important revenue streams, markets positively impact local businesses, governments, and residents. But perhaps most important is the way markets serve as public gathering places for people from different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic communities. As one of the few places where people comfortably gather and meet, markets are our neighborhoods' original civic centers. The benefits of public markets:

• Provide Economic Opportunity
• Linking Urban and Rural Economies
• Bring Together Diverse People
• Promote Public Health
• Create Active Public Space
• Renew Downtowns and Neighborhoods

Check out more information on Great Public Markets at our Great Public Spaces site.