ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the pressures of gentrification which threaten La Vega Central, a market privately owned by its stallholders in Santiago de Chile. It argues that the current accessibility of the market is being challenged through processes of urban renewal and the eradication of the affordable landscape surrounding the market. In the case of La Vega, the public condition of the market has evolved over time. More recently there has been a change in the relationship between the market and the political establishment, as La Vega has become a populist stage for national politicians. While ownership does give the stallholders power over their own land, it does not automatically guarantee the continued existence of the market itself. In Chile one of the essential characteristics of the historic marketplace has been the active role of the poor in the production of this public place based on their own working class culture.
