I think I've seen this before in books

This is a North American city that can still hawk items on the sidewalk, not fake Louis Vuittons like they do in New York, but homemade things. I've walked by children on the sidewalks of the busiest street selling lemonade and men dressed in suits buying from them. I've walked past people selling jars of jam, and rode past a family sitting on their porch yelling, "75 cents for a bike wash!" People don't have to wait for official sidewalk sale days here, nor do they have to open a store. This kind of thing died in the suburbs long ago (because no one is on the streets there! ha!), and in the cities people are too suspicious of each other to stop.

I think I've read about this kind of selling in books, but I don't recall seeing it so frequently. This place is so foreign to me, this place called community.