Bye-Bye Bargains: Zoo Market to Close in 2014

Beijing is once again putting the kibosh on a local shopping institution with the formal announcement that the west-side bargain clothes shopping area known as the Zoo Market will be relocated to an undetermined location.

Like the Dongjiao Market before it, the Zoo Market is being targeted for removal by a city government bent on shutting down all the small commodities marketplaces that have long been part of the fabric of Beijing, in the name of modernization, traffic relief and urban renewal (read: creation of more international-caliber brand-name shopping malls).

Small commodities marketplaces are characterized by large concentrations of individual shopkeepers selling similar items, and they’ve long been a boon to Beijing shoppers looking for a bargain. The markets are the perfect embodiment of free market forces at work – intense competition amongst merchants means a great haggler can always score a great deal (though buyer beware – counterfeit brands abound).

In many ways, these marketplaces, particularly to foreign visitors from more developed urban areas, are what makes Beijing both unique and affordable. Many a foreigner has had their first taste of haggling at one of these marketplaces and its hard to imagine what Beijing would be like without such landmark marketplaces such as the Silk Alley, Yashow and Tianyi Market.

On the flip side, the areas where these marketplaces are located have been increasingly characterized by intense traffic snarls. The marketplaces – most built before the era of underground parking garages and densely populated with buyers, sellers and delivery trucks – are looked at as backward nuisances by planning officials much more impressed with megamalls stocked with international brand names.

A quote from one city official left no doubt about the city’s future development priorities: The nation and the capital come first, then neighborhood services, and then finally regional services:

Quote:

“We need to differentiate between the different functions of Beijing’s urban center: those that service the functions in its role as the nation’s capital; those that serve the entire country; those that service the district, and those that service the local residents. The Zoo Market falls into the category of functioning for the district, so we should move it out to relieve the area [of pressure].”

At the same time the city also sent a warning signal to three other marketplaces, though none are as popular among foreigners as the Zoo Market: the Shilipu market (at the southeast corner of the 3rd Ring, known for its furniture, lighting and other home wares) as well as the Dahongmen (clothing) and Xinfadi (wholesale produce) markets.  While they stopped short of saying these markets would be taken down, no doubt change is afoot for them in 2014.

No plans were announced for exactly when the Zoo Market would close other than the rather vague assurance that action would be taken during the first half of 2014. The city also said there are currently no plans for the land the Zoo Market now occupies.