In a coup that will draw literally hundreds of tourists to town, Cleveland has landed an 2012 International Public Markets Conference.
It’s not about the tourists though, of which there will be about 300. It’s about the impact of bringing the conference to the West Side Market, showing off Cleveland’s gleaming sustainability and local food movements, and beating out other candidates like London and Toronto.
The West Side Market was the big draw to the conference organizers. Stephen Davies from the Project for Public Spaces told the Plain Dealer, “It was huge. It’s one of the most stunning indoor public markets in the country, and there are not many left in the United States. There are some 150 of them, and Cleveland’s historically is probably the grandest of them all.”
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2011.
I do not understand how the West Side Market represents a local food movement. A lot of the foods from WSM are imported. If it were local, the variety would be nil. Yet we were chosen over other cities for this? Something is missing in the logic for me.