In the flea market's rise, an economic saga

Some rural areas, getting a glimpse of those possibilities on suddenly crowded streets, ask "whether it has the potential to be transformative," says Deb Markley, the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based codirector of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. And that potential is there, she says. The challenge is figuring out how a town can capitalize on its guests - sometimes in the hundreds of thousands - to forge "a strategy with a broader impact than the self-employment of vendors."

Despite the sheer size of markets like Hillsville's, the IRS has yet to crack down on the collection of sales taxes, as the cost of the effort would outweigh its gain. The growth of that "informal economy" has increased the amount of cash in circulation per American from $1,105 in 1990 to $2,455 in 2004 - and untaxed goods account for some 10 percent of the gross national product. It's a sign that, especially in rural regions, Americans are diversifying: More and more, four or five income streams are flowing into two-wage-earner households, says Elaine Edgecomb, a director at the Aspen Institute, a Washington think tank.

Still, some critics worry that flea markets are a sign more of tragedy than triumph - a symbol of sinking expectations and collapsing economies that can force the liquidation of even the smallest assets. In that reading, the clusters of tents that pop up in towns and on highways are less an homage to resourcefulness than a vision harkening back to Dust Bowl days, when families sometimes sold their most precious belongings to survive.

The truth, say economists, won't be clear for some time, and the picture is muddled for now. Many vendors are "necessity entrepreneurs" who come to supplant lost jobs. But there are also "pull factors," says Ms. Edgecomb - people seeking autonomy, opportunity, and control who are drawn to the markets because they want to cultivate a skill, or simply love doing it.

In Hillsville, long rows of merchants hawk Japanese knives and headache powders. Andean pan-flute minstrels compete for soundspace with the Wild Turkeys, a mostly female bluegrass band. There's a visible hierarchy, with antiques dealers on top and, at the bottom, the "sock people" who lay clearanced socks on tarps.

For shoppers like retired truck driver Hugh Burton, poking around can yield bargains on goods he calls "the real McCoy." In Hillsville, he bought five solid-wood guitars with hard cases for $495.

In a sense, Gatlinburg, Tenn., native Fred Gilstorf represents both sides of the table. Traveling 300 days a year across the country, he spends money to make money, buying up old kitchen pots that he transforms - using driftwood from Tennessee's Lake Douglas - into funky garden fountains. Up on his stool, looking out over the sweating crowds, he says he feels a surge of pride as water spills from the spouts of his inventions.

"In a way, these vendors are the ultimate Americans," says Gilstorf. "It's free enterprise, the whole deal."

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