Economic Space and Urban Policies

Abstract

The difficulty of defining fairs and markets with any methodological clarity is particularly pronounced when one considers the problem of space and the growth of urban centers. The close link between the two economic institutions is especially conspicuous in the case of Italy, a country that not only boasted the highest concentration of towns, but also showed precocious instances of institutional powers adopting urban strategies. What this suggests is that a single model is insufficient and that different analytical approaches must be adopted. The aim of this article is to identify certain lines of development in the relations linking fairs and markets to urban spaces-in the broad sense of both urban spaces and geo-economical spaces dominated by an urban center.The difficulty of defining fairs and markets with any methodological clarity and of distinguishing between the two phenomena-a difficulty pointed out by many historians and economists with regard to Italy and other countries 1 -is particularly pronounced when one considers the problem of space and the growth of urban centers. 2 The close link between the two economic institutions is especially conspicuous in the case of Italy, a country that not only boasted the highest concentration of towns (of which most were, for the medieval and early modern ages, densely populated) but also showed precocious instances of institutional powers adopting urban strategies. What this suggests is that a single model is insufficient and that different analytical approaches must be adopted. The aim of this article is to identify certain lines of development in the relations linking fairs and markets to urban spaces (in the broad sense of both urban spaces and geo-economical spaces dominated by an urban center).Within the context of European trade, the fairs of the medieval and early modern ages represented a dynamic element in the economy of their time. According to Fernand Braudel, this was the case at least until the early decades of the eighteenth century. 3 The fair systems, such as those of Champagne or Flanders, and the big fairs in cities such as Geneva, Frankfurt am Main, Lyons, and Medina del Campo lay at the center (N.B., none were ports) of extensive economic areas that corresponded neither to political regions nor for that