At the beginning of this century, the traditional market was considered as a drainedinstitution by the business world and the local government of Madrid. The modernization had been imposed as necessary and was met with apparent consensus. However, the result of this transformation of local city markets was very different than the success story which was promised regarding its own goals. In its implementation, it needed a big institutional intervention, lack of transparency in the processes and a suffocating economic situation that was leaving merchants in dead alleys. This modernization had eminently neoliberal character: it supposed disengagement from the market and its public criteria of everydayness and proximity which constituted their previous purpose, an irreversible disintegration of social links and expropriation of its cultural forms. In its place, it left a format that services more global objectives, which reconverted parts of its functioning to experiential consumption, oriented to the occasional visits from locals and tourists.