The market I'd like to talk about is the vegetable and spice market near my grandmother's house in Lahore. I've been going there since I was about six, so I've seen it change quite dramatically over roughly twenty years.
Back then it was a maze of narrow lanes with wooden stalls and tarpaulin roofs. The ground was always muddy, especially in the monsoon, and you had to squeeze past donkey carts loaded with onions. Every stallholder knew my grandmother by name, and half the shopping time was spent chatting and haggling over a few rupees.
About eight years ago the city rebuilt it. Now there's a concrete building with numbered stalls, proper drainage, electric lighting and even a small car park. Prices are written on boards, so there's much less bargaining, and some of the older traders couldn't afford the new rent and simply disappeared.
My feelings about it are honestly mixed. On the practical side, it's a huge improvement. It's cleaner, it's safer for older people like my grandmother, who used to slip on the wet ground, and food doesn't go off as quickly because some stalls now have fridges. But something has definitely been lost. The old market was chaotic and a bit dirty, yet it had a real sense of community. Now it feels more like a supermarket with the walls painted green. When I go these days, I miss the noise and the stallholders who used to slip me a free guava. So I'd say the change was necessary, but I wish the planners had kept a bit more of its character.