Market Square is the social centre of downtown Knoxville — a proper public space rather than a pedestrianised shopping precinct. The square is surrounded by two- and three-storey brick buildings that date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of them now housing restaurants, bars, and independent shops.
On Wednesday and Saturday mornings, a farmers' market fills the square with local produce, baked goods, and craft stalls. In the evenings, outdoor tables spill from the surrounding restaurants and the square functions as a de facto communal living room. On warm weekday lunchtimes it fills with office workers, and the atmosphere is exactly the kind of easy civic life that most American cities have struggled to create.