The basic form of the market shop is a shop at the front and a workshop behind: goods are sold at the front and made at the back, with shop and workshop joined. Shops of this kind gathered in one place make a market street.
In Northern Song Bianjing the ward walls gradually fell away. Traders opened shops along the streets, some spread out onto the street itself, and night markets flourished, so that the ward-market system, which had kept trade enclosed in wards, gave way to open streets.
The late Northern Song scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival shows the Bian River's banks lined with shops, taverns and vendors, one after another.
In the Ming and Qing the market towns of Jiangnan flourished, and shops with a workshop behind stood in rows along both banks of the canals, one form that a commercial economy took in towns.
Marketplace Hubs is the class in the chapter on Commerce on town shops: the street-front shops of towns from the Song on, with a shop at the front and a workshop behind. From the streets of Northern Song Bianjing after the ward walls fell away to the Jiangnan market towns strung along the canals in the Ming and Qing, it is about how shops and market streets arose; individual shops are entered separately.
