"You don't need to shop," explains one woman. "The only thing you have to do is look at home for things you don't use at all. Online, you look up ‘exchange market' and you'll find every week an exchange market in every neighborhood."

"It could be easier," says a teenage girl.  "But it's more fun this way, and that's the great part of it. It's the joy of it."

Sarah Goodyear found this video on The Pop-Up City, an online blog run by an Amsterdam-based design agency. The concept of Barter Markets is simple-- people bring things they don't want and exchange it for things that other people don't want. They reduce the amount of excessive spending, clean unwanted junk, and create a vibrant public space. (Yes, Washington has its barter fair. Slightly different.)

The original poster, Athina Arampatzi, writes that the movement is spreading in Europe, putting it in a global economic context:

As rapid globalization processes have set in motion a series of scalar transformations in economy, barter markets and swapping activities seem to provide alternate ways for local economies to maintain their balance. Most of the people involved in bartering highlight the major contribution of the ‘exchange-act' in raising awareness over our normal consumption habits and the value of things. At the same time, the main idea behind swapping is the contribution of goods, or even people's skills and services. Through the exchange part, people are presented with the opportunity to put back into circulation unused items, but also their own personal resources and assert, in this way, a certain degree of control over their personal economies.

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