ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the municipal network of markets of Madrid paying specific attention to three markets. Using empirical methodology, observation and qualitative and quantitative analysis, it presents the transformation of markets in Madrid not as one single process but as an array of possibilities. In the case of Madrid, a commercial overview of the 1990s reveals the spatial and sectoral structure of local trade activities. Madrid City Council has presented the changes in consumption patterns in the city and the decline of public markets as a natural evolution in retail processes. The analysis of Madrid shows that the transformation of markets involves the emergence of a double gentrification border. The democratisation of luxury and the increase in values triggered by consumption clearly explain the occurrence of gentrification processes, the use of culture and arts as distinction mechanisms in certain neighbourhoods and gourmetisation of food trade in different markets around the globe.
