Johannesburg (South Africa) Inner City African Immigrant Traders: Pathways from Poverty?

By deploying various perspectives on urban informality as an analytical lens, this paper explores why African immigrant traders in the Johannesburg (South Africa) inner city have resorted to informal street trading, in the midst of challenges relating to, among others, harassment by regulatory authorities and lack of the necessary trading licences. Using a qualitative study of 40 African immigrant traders, this study suggests as simplistic the explanation that African immigrant traders continue to set up businesses and trade in the Johannesburg inner city, because they were only escaping from, among others, poverty and exploitation. Insights from this study seem to suggest that they also engage in street trading because of the lure of less or no stringent controls and the possibility of earning higher incomes. Such insights seem to complicate the perception by African immigrant traders that they engaged in street trading simply because of discrimination, xenophobia and the devaluing of their qualifications. This raises implications regarding the complexity of reasons why African immigrants in a setting like the Johannesburg inner city engage in street trading.     

Macmillan’s martyr: the Pilgrim case,the ‘land grab’ and the Tory housing drive, 1951–9

The suicide of Edward Pilgrim in 1954 prompted a public furore over the easy terms on which public authorities could compulsorily purchase privately owned land for development. This article argues that Harold Macmillan, as Conservative Housing Minister after 1951, consciously prolonged the statist purchase provisions of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act even as a reviving market in development land in the early 1950s made them unrealistic and inequitable. The Tories’ twin aims of abolishing the 1947 development charge and making good the ambitious 1951 election pledge to build 300,000 houses per year created an immensely complex set of problems which Macmillan negotiated with much skill. The result, though, was that local authorities – mostly Labour ones – eager to build houses benefited and many individual small owners like Pilgrim suffered from this policy. The Tory pledge was therefore realised in part by means of a hidden subsidy to municipal socialism and at the expense of many natural Conservative supporters.     

Conflicts over streets: The eviction of Bangkok street vendors

In 2014, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) introduced the ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan. This plan, appealing to the Act on Maintaining Public Cleanliness and Public Order, promised to bring ‘safety and orderliness’ to the city, and its implementation led to the removal of street vendors. This article investigates the goals, practices, and effects of the street clean-up plan in Bangkok's old town and shows the ironic consequences of the plan: the streets became less safe. By analysing the vendors' rights, interests, and strategies for coping with the eviction that affected their livelihood, this article focuses on street vendors' survival strategies and analyses various forms of conflicts over streets: the vendors versus city authorities, among the vendors, and the vendors versus powerful gangsters, and discusses the mediation of these conflicts by a senior Buddhist monk who spoke on behalf of street vendors in negotiations with city authorities.     

From deficient planning to “incapable tenants”. Changing discourses on housing problems in Sweden

Since the mid 1970s, discourses on housing problems and problem tenants in Sweden have changed significantly. This article, which is based on official reports and an urban case study, accounts for this transformation at the national, the urban, as well as the work‐practice level of discourse from a constructivist perspective.

The government's understanding of high vacancy rates were, in the 1970s, associated with deficient planning and building. However, in the 1980s, focus was diverted to a crisis in the public housing sector, which in turn highlighted the “noisy neighbour” as the source of their negative image. At the urban level the shifting discourse is signified by the municipal housing companies’ more selective policy in the 1980s, and the local social authorities’ growing role in housing for homeless clients. Contradictory demands from the role as landlords and as social workers, at the level of work‐practice, resulted in a redefinition and revaluation of homeless clients. In the beginning of the 1990s, these new practices at urban and street‐levels were sanctioned at the national level, thereby completing the shift from structural to individual accounts for housing problems.     

The Relational Economy of Informality: Spatial Dimensions of Street Trading in Ivory Park,South Africa

The paper seeks to contribute towards an understanding of the spatial ordering of the neighbourhood economy of marginalised urban communities where informal businesses predominate. In doing so, we examine the spatial economy of informality in which contestations and agreements over space exert an organising dynamic. These social-spatial processes are examined through a case study in Ivory Park, Johannesburg, wherein we focus on the consumption and organisation of space, the infrastructural and architectural strategies that entrepreneurs utilise in responding to market impulses, risks and pressure and the unseen organisational logics as well as social processes in which the use of space is contested. The analysis is based on primary data collected through a business census and a social-spatial examination of the street market environment, including infrastructure and business forms. The research highlights three aspects of this relational economy that are insightful for the process of thinking about how cities should respond to economic informality. First, the case illustrates the flexible agility of businesses, witnessed in the responsiveness of business activities to space and place dynamics. Second, it illuminates some of the unseen organisational logics that accommodate different business and non-business needs (traders versus pedestrians; small businesses versus large) but also uphold power dynamics. Third, it reveals the social processes that facilitate inclusivity, from surveillance, to the acceptance of ‘outsiders’ and the sociability afforded by the publicness of interactions within the street space. Taken together, these aspects demonstrate the importance of reimagining current approaches to managing neighbourhood economies in ways that are sensitive to the complex systems that spatial informalities can generate.     

Spaces of resilience,ingenuity, and entrepreneurship in informal work in Ghana

Despite playing an important role in the economies of low-income countries, there is a perception that informal markets are haphazard and disorganized. Using in-depth interviews conducted in Accra, Ghana, this study examines the strategic choices that market women pursue to gain access to and thrive in informal working spaces and ensure long-term survival. The findings reveal that entry into the informal working spaces is contingent on women’s ability to forge and nourish ties with acquaintances, kinsmen and middlemen. Further, the study found that in contrast to the notion of unregulated competition typically associated with street vending, market relations among women traders in informal market spaces are marked by alliances between rival sellers that transcended religious, ethnic, linguistic, and generational divides. As well, a strict code of conduct governs market behaviour, underpinned by an ethos of cooperation and mutual assistance among rival sellers. Furthermore, market women in Accra articulate the rationale behind informal entrepreneurship in ways that align with local and national development agenda. In so doing, the market women lend legitimacy to their trade, demand accountability from local authorities, and oppose repressive practices by the state. We highlight the implications of our findings for city planning and development.     

The (in)formal,the (il)legal and the (il)licit. Roma informal settlements and institutional pragmatics of compromise and compassion in a Roman periphery

Using the lens of informal Roma settlements in the southwestern periphery of Rome, this article explores Romani approaches to urban space, showing how these are informed by heterogeneous understandings of non-Roma conceptions and practices of (in)formality, (il)legality and (il)licitness. The article also highlights complex and ambivalent attitudes concerning Roma and their informal settlements on the part of non-Roma residents of the neighboring district. Finally, it frames the existence of the informal settlements within the authorities' juggling of formal rejection and informal calculated acceptance of urban informality. The grey spaces that emerge from the convergence of institutional pragmatics of compromise and compassion are connected to governmental discourses that frame informal Roma settlements as dangerous and polluting spaces, and treat their inhabitants as exploitable labor force and politically expendable subjects. Urban (in)formality is also the space that Roma, like many non-Roma, navigate to cope with vulnerability and express their right to the city. Informal Roma settlements thus appear fully embedded in the political, socio-economic and cultural fabric of Rome, which embraces them precisely by treating them as separate polluting spaces.     

Wearing Memories: Clothing and the Global Lives of Mourning in Swaziland

Abstract

This article situates a cultural phenomenon of women’s memory work through clothing in Swaziland. It explores clothing as both action and object of everyday, personalized practice that constitutes psychosocial well-being and material proximities between the living and the dead, namely, in how clothing of the deceased is privately possessed and ritually manipulated by the bereaved. While human and spiritual self-other relations are produced through clothing and its material efficacy, current global ideologies of immaterial mortuary ritual associated with Pentecostalism have emerged as contraries to this local, intersubjective grief work. This article describes how such contrarian ideologies paper over existing global aspects of people’s entangled relations with the dead – in three biographies of women and their objects – thus showing that memory work is not limited to people, goods, or ideas that flow between nations and expanding notions of the global and gendered practices of personhood.     

Sidewalk Informality: An Examination of Street Vending Regulation in China

Street vending represents a vital and growing aspect of the urban informal economy that is often the subject of municipal regulatory efforts that seek to control, confine or extinguish it. In the People's Republic of China, recent developments and discussions on vendor rights and regulation underscore important socio-political and economic changes and concerns around the role of the informal economy in this country. As more of China's rural poor enter urban areas and turn to the streets to survive, the number of unlicensed vendors has risen and municipal efforts at increased regulation and enforcement of street vending licensure have been enacted. These developments within the context of China's ‘state-capitalist economy’ provide a fertile field for research into the informal economy, use and re-appropriation of public space, and regulation of a previously marginalized commercial activity. This paper draws from primary and secondary sources to provide an overview of street vending in China and consider the implications of recent regulatory developments and public dialogue that strive to formalize the informal.     

Local Authority Homelessness Prevention in England: Empowering Consumers or Denying Rights?

High profile commitments to stemming homelessness have been integral to New Labour's emphasis on promoting social inclusion since 1997. During this period official policy has favoured an increasingly assertive approach in this area as exemplified by the successful post-1998 programmes to reduce street homelessness. The period since 2002 has seen a broader ministerial drive to reduce homelessness, mainly through encouraging local authorities (LAs) to adopt more pro-active, preventative approaches to the problem. Aided by substantial central funding LAs have responded by developing numerous initiatives to this end. Particularly where they involve assisting people at risk of homelessness to access private tenancies, such schemes are often justified by LAs as empowering consumers and promoting choice. With official homelessness figures in England having fallen dramatically since 2003/04, it would appear that the new ‘homelessness prevention regime’ has made a marked impact. However, what such figures do not reveal is the extent to which this results from the adoption of more restrictive interpretations of LA duties under the homelessness legislation. This could mean that the problem is being re-defined rather than resolved. Drawing on a recently completed study, this paper explores the tensions between helping resolve people's housing problems, on the one hand, and upholding legal rights to accommodation, on the other.     

On the Fringe of the Economy: Migrant Street Traders in Durban

The number of migrants working on the streets of cities throughout South Africa has increased tremendously over the past few years. This study draws on qualitative data to understand the experiences of migrant street traders in Durban, South Africa. The qualitative data for the study come from in-depth interviews with local and migrant street traders. Migrant street traders are attracted to Durban because of the economic opportunities that the city offers as well as the lower crime rate than other cities. The findings suggest that migrant street traders make an economic contribution towards the development of the city. Migrants create employment by hiring locals to assist them in their businesses. Some tension exists between local and migrant street traders because of fear of competition. Crime is a concern because it impacts negatively on their businesses. Other challenges experienced by the migrant traders include the harsh treatment by the police and lack of support for informal traders by the municipality. More emphasis should be placed on providing a supportive environment for street trading in Durban.     

The American Public Market

The design of public markets in the United States was shaped by the political-economic forces of municipal controls and private enterprise. As cities developed, open markets were eventually replaced by architectural structures located in the street. Traffic congestion increased in American cities, and markets were eventually relocated on the block, with architectural changes resulting from this move. The public market was also shaped internally by the business activities of stall merchants, and as the twentieth century emerged, privately owned markets were built that began to change the nature of labor relations within the market. The rise of the grocery store led to the market's demise. Municipalities abandoned the public market as tax revenues fell, and private entrepreneurs faced great difficulties in competing with grocery stores that were operating under a system of mass distribution. Today, the public market is perceived as a viable cultural function, but without the political-economic viability of its former days.     

The Point is to Change It

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how planning practices contribute to the reification of the ‘state’ through the case of Singapore’s new urban waterfront, Marina Bay. Instead of assuming Singapore’s state-led planning model as inherently ‘top-down’ and ‘long-term’, it disaggregates the planning process into three specific modes of abstraction – calculation, historicity and imagination – and analyzes the role of each in reifying the ‘state’ as the singular author of history and development. The case contributes to the literature by illuminating how ‘states’ can appear to have different forms, spatialities, agencies and ultimately consequences, without compartmentalizing planning models based primarily on ideological or geopolitical divisions.     

Names,norms and forms: French and indigenous toponyms in early colonial Dakar,Senegal

Research on street naming systems in general and on colonial street names in particular is not abundant. This article examines the French colonial policy regarding street names in Dakar, as well as the accompanying colonial terminology that was applied in Dakar’s quarters. With occasional references to the pre‐colonial and the post‐colonial periods, the main focus of this article is on street names in early colonial Dakar, as they were designated by the preliminary master plan of Pinet‐Laprade in the 1860s. While residential segregation was never a stated policy on the part of the colonial authorities there, who formally fostered assimilation, it will be shown that toponyms had a key role in the alienation of the indigenous population in the city centre. As Dakar’s city centre was considered ‘European’ and a chief lieu de colonisation in West Africa, its colonial urban toponyms reflected an official memory that excluded African histories and identities. Using original historical evidence, alternative naming systems of reference to certain urban areas on the part of the Dakarois will be discussed – systems that sometimes challenged and sometimes supplemented their French counterparts.     

Australian Cities and Regions in the Depression: Recent Trends in Unemployment

Australia's recent economic woes have produced a steep rise in national unemployment rates since 1989 (Figure 1) but – as always – the impacts have not been even. Some regions, some cities and some parts of our major cities have fared worse than others. This is no surprise. Much of the recent literature on the nature of urban development in the Western world has emphasised the spatial uneven-ness of the impacts of economic restructuring and demographic change. However it is important that as social scientists and policymakers weareawareof the specific spatial dimensions of the current recession in this country. This Forum examines current trends in unemployment at four spatial levels. At each level, significant variations occur as the result of the intersection of differences in industry mix, occupational structure, and demographic and socio-economic composition within local labour markets. Kevin O'Connor and Virginia Rapson begin by examining contrasts between the capital cities, establishing a national context for the subsequent more detailed contributions, and highlighting in particular the recent decline in Melbourne's job market following the collapse of the finance and property sector.     

Why there? Developers' rationale for building social housing in the urban periphery in Latin America

Inadequate housing has become endemic to Latin American cities for over six decades. All that has changed has been who is going where. In the 1960s, the rural poor who came to the city solved their housing needs by building their own informal settlements on peri-urban lands. Today, the urban poor relocate to peri-urban housing complexes built by the private sector with state subsidies. Why have these new housing units for low-income households been built in peri-urban areas? This paper examines some of the mechanisms behind the location of the urban poor in cities, with a specific focus on the role developers have played in the construction of affordable housing in peri-urban areas of Brazil and, Mexico. The paper explores these mechanisms through interviews with affordable housing developers. We found that economies of scale – and not land prices – explain developers' preference for building in peripheral areas. Initial savings that accrue to developers due to lower land prices in the periphery are offset by the cost of having to build basic onsite infrastructure. Plus, large lots – which are available almost exclusively in urban peripheries – enable developers to achieve significant cost savings because these large lots make it possible for developers to build more than 500 units. In addition, weaker municipal regulations and fewer bidders, both of which are typical for projects in difficult-to-access peripheral locations, make for a shorter and easier approval process for these large housing projects.     

Public space and the challenge of urban transformation in cities of emerging economies: Jeddah case study

Urban planning, design guidelines and new management practices have radically transformed public spaces in many countries. With fresh development decisions, urban spaces change spatially. This may improve places, increasing prosperity and extending expectations of modernization in many cities. However, widespread public disillusion and failures to produce environments reflecting local values can collectively shape public areas. This article contributes to debate about dynamism in such spaces. It explores how modernist approaches to planning and design alongside fractures in management practices in emerging cities have shaped the quality urban space. We use Jeddah as a radically re-planned city in a rapidly developing economy, but one where largely unusable public spaces have failed to meet people's everyday needs and aspirations. Our investigation – based on extensive literature reviews, documentary analyses, morphological survey, photographic and qualitative surveys – provides a better understanding of the role of a proactive urban design for promoting environmental quality. This helps resolve the multiple challenges confronting public space provision.     

Rapid Re(f)use: 3-D Fabricated Positive Waste Ecologies

Mitchell Joachim calls for a radical revision of our approach to waste management. Rather than the low-level recycling that goes on through municipal authorities, he advocates the proactive use of waste to regenerate our cities. This he illustrates with Terreform One + Terrefuge's Rapid Re(f)use and Homeway projects that aim ‘to capture, reduce and redesign New York's refuse infrastructure’. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design Thinking

Abstract

This article uses Mikhail Bakhtin and Homi K. Bhabha's notions of hybridity as an interpretive tool in a traditional market area situated to the north of the center of Calcutta called Barabazaar or the Great Bazaar. More specifically, I study the changing effects of colonialization and globalization on a small group of Marwari paper traders in an area at the southern end of Barabazaar called China Bazaar. Acknowledging the overlapping geographies, both indigenous and foreign, that were and are constantly negotiated in places such as Barabazaar, I define a concept of hybrid space.     

Current design guidelines’ streetscape improvement for visual perception and walkability: A case study of Sejong City,Republic of Korea

This study explores how recent design guidelines have focused on the visual variety of streetscapes making them more attractive. To date, this topic has been one of the most challenging parts of constructing walkable streets. We evaluated the streetscape features of Sejong City, recently constructed as Republic of Korea’s new capital city, and investigated their relationships with design guidelines. Consequently, we identified three principal reasons related to the design guidelines for the visual monotony in the street produced by the most up-to-date design guidelines compared with an ordinary street. First, the design guidelines cannot restrict the construction of large-scale buildings on the street, hindering visual changes caused by the zoning ordinance regulations because zoning regulations took priority when it comes to urban planning and regulatory governance. Second, design standards intending for a consistent street wall of buildings, which were used only in regard to the street enclosure standard, produced less spatial diversity and indistinct building bases, presenting weak vertical articulation. Third, applying the uniform standards for each building created repetitive architecture despite design standards for visual variety, such as recessed top floors, arcades, and retail uses for the ground floors facing a street.