Informal Urban Street Markets

Through an international range of research, this volume examines how informal urban street markets facilitate the informal and formal economy not merely in terms of the traditional concerns of labor and consumption, but also in regards to cultural and spatial contingencies. In many places, street markets and their populace have been marginalized and devalued. At times, there are clear governance procedures that aim to prevent them, yet they continue to emerge in even in the most institutionalized societies. This book gives serious consideration to what these markets reveal about urban life in a time of globalized, rapid urbanization and flows of people, knowledge and goods.

Through an international range of research, this volume examines how informal urban street markets facilitate the informal and formal economy not merely in terms of the traditional concerns of labor and consumption, but also in regards to cultural and spatial contingencies. In many places, street markets and their populace have been marginalized and devalued. At times, there are clear governance procedures that aim to prevent them, yet they continue to emerge in even in the most institutionalized societies. This book gives serious consideration to what these markets reveal about urban life in a time of globalized, rapid urbanization and flows of people, knowledge and goods.

Originally published in 1990, Urban Markets looks at how the informal sector of the economy should be encouraged to assist in the alleviation of problems of poverty and unemployment. Despite this rhetoric, few concrete, implementable ways have been developed. This book is concerned with one such potential strategy which the authors consider to be particularly effective: the creation of both built and open markets for very small retailers and wholesalers. Based on experience of observing such markets in several continents, the authors combine a discussion of the theoretical issues surrounding the creation of urban markets with practical hints of how to establish and run them.

Low industrial growth, declining agricultural sector and limited expansion of formal sector employment in India have increasingly forced the poor to take recourse to informal sources of livelihoods. Street vending is one such thriving source of self-employment across cities. This book delves into the sustenance and survival strategies of street vendors across 17 cities in India and assesses the issues revolving around self-created markets, livelihood and politics that are contested in public space. It also presents a conceptual and theoretical understanding of different socio-economic and policy concerns pertaining to street vending in the country. The study shows how despite the absence of legal frameworks and institutional support, these urban self-employed informal workers subsist by arranging ad-hoc alternatives, creating informal institutions and negotiating with formal and informal actors in the market. It also discusses the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, and examines how inclusive the legal recognition is for these workers of informal economy. Drawing on exhaustive research and a wealth of primary data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers in development studies, labour studies, economics, sociology and those in public policy and urban planning.

From around 1850, London's street markets grew in number and scale, giving working-class Londoners a site for shopping, entertainment and sociability. Cheap Street is the first major study of this subject, analysing the street markets as a component of London's lively informal economy, and providing new insights into urban and consumer geographies.

Bringing together imaginative architectural approaches with texts by key contemporary thinkers, the two-part Informal Market Worlds explores new ways to interrupt the dominant logics of neoliberal governance. The Reader includes expert essays on urban informality, bottom-up economies and informal architectures as harbingers of social and political change. Offering a global perspective on the conflicted realities of informal marketplaces--from survival activities of the urban poor to transnational clandestine trade networks--these analyses reveal how informality has become a political instrument in the struggles around global market integration.

Low industrial growth, declining agricultural sector and limited expansion of formal sector employment in India have increasingly forced the poor to take recourse to informal sources of livelihoods. Street vending is one such thriving source of self-employment across cities. This book delves into the sustenance and survival strategies of street vendors across 17 cities in India and assesses the issues revolving around self-created markets, livelihood and politics that are contested in public space. It also presents a conceptual and theoretical understanding of different socio-economic and policy concerns pertaining to street vending in the country. The study shows how despite the absence of legal frameworks and institutional support, these urban self-employed informal workers subsist by arranging ad-hoc alternatives, creating informal institutions and negotiating with formal and informal actors in the market. It also discusses the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, and examines how inclusive the legal recognition is for these workers of informal economy. Drawing on exhaustive research and a wealth of primary data, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers in development studies, labour studies, economics, sociology and those in public policy and urban planning.

The market places and street corners of Dar es Salaam are home to a thriving informal economy of street vendors selling secondhand clothing and other goods. These street vendors often live a precarious existence, under pressure from state authorities and international markets. In addition to these external pressures, the experiences of such vendors are also shaped by a complex interplay of internal tensions, rivalries and conflicting communal ties. Such internal dynamics are a common part of informal economies around the world, but have largely gone unrecognised and unexamined by academic scholarship. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and extensive interviews with vendors living and working in Dar es Salaam, Malefakis's book offers a nuanced portrait of those trying to carve out a livelihood in a major African city, one in which ties of kinship and ethnicity are often viewed as a barrier, rather than an aid, to success. In the process, Malefakis provides an invaluable new perspective on the way in which co-operation, or lack thereof, functions in an informal economy, as well as insight into the lived experiences of those who depend on such economies.