REFLECTIONS OF BLOG POSTS

It was interesting to see how this blog has been shaped through out the different posts and directions it has taken. I honestly chose this topic because I had absolutely no idea on what to write about for this blog project so I chose this topic, street vending in Port of Spain.A street vendor is a person who offers goods or services for sale to the public without having a permanently built structure but with a temporary static structure or mobile stall (drink vendors we see patrolling the streets selling drinks to people at red lights). They make up the informal sector as they work for their selves selling produce grown from their own gardens or produce bought in bulk. 

My colleague's blog is similar to my own but different because it deals with the commercial aspects of urban life. Where as I deal with the vending aspects of an urban city. While browsing through her blog Urban Life: The Utopia of the Shopper, I came across the post "Come and get it... La Calle Expendedora" where the side street aspect of vending is explored. When reading it it made me realize that street and side street vending are extensions of each other but they are both done in different areas.

Urbanization: The Double Edged Sword, Blog entry one of the Double-Edged Sword, shared the relation that most street vendors are marginalized by the formal sectors because they do not meet the needs that they desire. It could also be that this man has retired and is not receiving pension to pay for whatever bills he may have and if he is receiving pension it may not be enough. Most of the times as you said people would go to many lengths to make ends meet and to care for their loved one or themselves. 

The "The Stand Against Litter in San Fernando" post for the blog Urban Pollution it was not directly related to any of my posts but I found that it did correlate to how vendors choose areas in which to vend.  San Fernando, is a known place for street vending. This area must have been one of the areas not designated for people to vend on. Street vendors and consumers in Port of Spain, contribute to the majority of trash disposed in the capital area. Also, as you said above it is a neglected area where hardly anyone would venture, so street vendors would be less inclined to set up shop there because revenue would be little to none, thus making it more litter free than other parts of San Fernando.

Gentrified street vendors

The street vendor above in the plaid shirt stares intently off into the distance pondering on some vague thought as he waits for people to come by his stall. Maybe it's a thought of longing and the desire to be more than just a street vendor. 

Gentrification occurs when wealthier people purchase or rent properties in low/middle income communities, they transforming these neighborhoods into “middle class residential and or commercial” zones.  Gentrification has been linked to “economic processes, the role of human agency and consumer preferences”. (Hall 2012). 

The definition used here defines the process for housing. You must be wondering where I am going with this but, have you ever considered that street vendors can be "gentrified" into a higher sort of state where they move from the streets to the walk in malls, this is now their indoor "sidewalks." 

Gentrification is a movement, a movement for betterment. All street vendors in the informal economy wants to be part of the formal economy and run their own store fronts. 

These malls that they become a part of are a form of agglomeration, street vending is also a form of agglomeration but it's still in the initial stages. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, agglomeration economies are the benefits that come when firms and people locate near one another together in cities and industrial cluster. 

In time everything would change for the better.

Reference

Hall, Tim and Heather Barrett. "Urban Geography." 264. London and New York: Routledge, 2012.

Glaeser, Edward L. Agglomeration Economics. The University of Chicago Press, 2010. Accessed March 30, 2014. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7977.pdf.

Sanitation

The major of vendors in the city of Port of Spain, sell food such as vegetables and fish. Very few of the vendors actually deviate from that trend. These vendors could be considered food vendors to an extent.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines street food as

"ready-to-eat food prepared and sold by vendors and hawkers, especially in streets and other similar public places."

The reason why I personally consider them as food vendors is because they sell food items, some which can be eaten readily for example fruits.


It's not to say that the vendor who is selling the fish in the above picture is not being very hygienic about this produce. My issues with this was was that enough ice to keep the fish at the temperature needed so that bacteria production would not happen. The fish is displayed in a rectangular type container, where does all the melted water from the ice drain out to? Does it stay inside of the container with the fish? If it is being let out, the water would be mixed with the blood of the fish and fall right next into the drain right where the fish monger's stall is located. Might I add that this stall is located partway in the drain? My other worry when I saw this was the little white and orange feline who kept making circles around the fish monger. Cats are known carriers of several diseases such as rabies and their stool is also known to carry deadly diseases also. 

All street vendors vend at the sides of the road which is commonly known as the drain. From all the previous pictures posted on this blog not one showed any place that had the availability of running water. I am sure we all suppose that they each walk with their own water supply but, how sure are we of that? From my visit to town I saw a few people with a generous water supply to keep their produce hydrated and clean. 

According to the report from the 2002 Wroking Group on Street Food Vendors, some regulations that vendors must follow when dealing with the sale of food are

• "structural requirements, sanitary facilities, potable water supply requirement, waste handling requirements, and general hygiene established by the health system for preparing and handling food safely.

• Street food vendors are often not equipped with proper facilities for the storage of hot and cold foods.

•  Where present, storage conditions often leave much to be desired. For example, in the majority of the cases, food is stored at room temperature in plastic containers. The uncooked food products, especially meat and poultry, are left at ambient temperature for long hours. Therefore, some countries discourage street food vendors from selling items that require cold storage"

Sometimes we think too much of vendors, that they actually come prepared with these things in mind. Say the odd case where a vendor has no water available and their produce falls from the stall into the drain, what does the vendor do? Does he leave it there? Depending on the type of produce it is and how damaged it has gotten for the fall, the vendor would retrieve the fallen produce maybe wipe it and rest it back in the pile where it belongs. Doing so contaminates all the other produce it come into contact with.

There is also the issue of flies. Food attracts flies, particularly house flies. There is no possible way that a person could do five things at once. As the vendor is seeing to a customer flies would land on the produce and in unfortunate cases also lay eggs on the produce.


References

Villas, Mendez, eds. Microbes in Applied Research: Current Advances and Challenges. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2012. Accessed April 10,2014. http://books.google.tt/books?id=pu2uZgoPv6QC&pg=PA266&dq=sanitation+and+street+vending&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i29HU9n2IJLK0AGiuYGgDA&ved=0CFsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=sanitation%20and%20street%20vending&f=false.

Environmental Solutions. "side street food vendors and food safety." Accessed April 9,2014. http://eslcaribbean.com/index.php/articles/item/street-side-food-vendors-and-food-safety.

Street Vendors and congestion

Street vending generally takes place in two areas of Port of Spain: Charlotte Street and George Street. Charlotte Street is clogged with vendors for as far as the eye could see. George Street however only utilizes  one side of the street mainly. These to streets are in the main urban centre, Port of Spain, which is also the Central Business District (CBD). Cutting through Charlotte Street, is Duke Street, an important street as it has several important business buildings and namely the Ministry of Labour and Micro-enterprise office.

 The picture above displays perfectly how a street vendor could cause congestion. First of all this particular street vendor has set up their business on a street corner. Traffic easily happens as some vendors stalls extend more into the path of the cars than they should. The one in the above picture more than extends onto the road and the path of oncoming vehicles.

 These two streets despite being lined with vendors are major roads in the capital.  There is also jay walking that is particularly famous in Trinidad. When pedestrians/ consumers are finished buying their produce they haphazardly step off into the road to walk to the stalls on the next side of the road or get to the pavement and cars would usually have to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting anyone.

It is understandable that street vendors have not been given any space to vend. The nature of street vending always seems to be in conflict (Voltolini, 2006).

This can be seen in the Guardian newspaper

"The vendors have been asking Coudray  to “have a heart” like her Port-of-Spain counterpart Louis Lee Sing, who reconsidered his no-vending position and allowed the Charlotte Street vendors to sell on the streets."

Sometimes as the old saying goes when you give someone an inch they will take a yard. When this happens cars are restricted to, two, tiny, two lane access where they have to carefully navigate. To do so they drive slowly down or up the lanes to avoid bumping into street vendor stalls, carts or crossing pedestrians as can be seen from this link. This causes a pile up of cars especially in the early hours of the morning around 10 o'clock or earlier. The traffic pile ups in these areas take long to subside and people would wait long hours in their cars just moving inch by inch as they slowly make their way through the sea of street vendors and pediatricians. 

There are several effects of the congestion formed from street vendors:

1. Aside from vehicular congestion there is pedestrian congestion
2. traffic accidents
3. an increase in vehicle produced air pollution
4. impede the flow of ambulance, police, fire and other emergency vehicles
5. crowed sidewalks

References

Connelly, Corey. "The sorry plight of Charlotte Street vendors." Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, December 19, 2010. http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,132732.html.

Singh, Sandra. "Vendors blame vendors." Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, April 2, 2008. http://www.newsday.co.tt/business/0,76109.html.

Voltolini, Patricia. Street Vending and the Use of Public Spaces in New York City. 2006. Accessed March 20, 2014. http://books.google.tt/books?id=FiS20Hgpqj8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=street+vending+and+congestion&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JiNHU-aqN-a22AXdk4HoAg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=street%20vending%20and%20congestion&f=false

Language of Street Vending

I do not know if it has escaped the attention of people but street vendors have a particular language in which they use. Their language is unique to them as they shout out to potential customers for example ", five dollahs ah pound for de tomatoes! Five dollars ah pound allyuh!"

There is also the way in which they display the prices of their produce. Sometimes the spelling is completely wrong and then there are other time where there are only prices. In that case they expect that customers know what they are purchasing and sometimes there are no prices and you have to inquire from the owner. All vendors have this attitude. Some may not be as loud as to shout out their prices for people but wait quietly with their signs or none at all. 

The question comes to mind, is this something that is developed over a period of time from pedaling in the area or did the vendors already have that particular way about them?

I would like to think that it has been adopted over a period of time because they believe it is the best way to advertise their produce or items. This way if a person is passing near their little stall or their car and not paying mind to stop and look at the various stalls but, hear a vendor shouting out the particular price per pound and the item, the consumer would be more inclined to stop and take a look. It might very well be an item that the person wanted.

This was a topic I was not able to find any form of references for. I do not know if I inputted the phrases or words in a wrong order or wrong sentence structure so that I was not able to get any supporting literature. Otherwise than that even if it did not have any supporting literature, I think that this topic is one that should be studied and researched. 

Is street vending gender biased?

These two women as seen in the picture above are seated at their stalls amongst the many street vendors in Port of Spain. Upon various visits to Port of Spain, it has come to my attention that the majority of vendors during the working week are women. There is a more equal mix of genders on the weekends unlike during the week. Unlike seen above where the two women are selling clothing, they are not only subjected to this. They were also running their own fruit and vegetable stalls and selling jewellery just to name a few.

Women of all races and ethnic backgrounds tend to be drawn more towards street vending. One begs to question is this out of necessity or choice?

Those who also engage or partake in street vending are sometimes those who have been marginalized from the labour force. Also there is no form of rent being allocated to persons who decide to sell on the streets.

Sometime women turn to street vending not because of a lack of formal jobs but because of the types of formal jobs available. In some instances according to the Praeger Handbook of Urban Education ", in many instances women prefer the autonomous conditions (having the freedom to govern their self or control their own affairs) of street vending to the low wages and restricted supervision of formal sector jobs available to them.

According to Wiego,

 
"Street vending is one of the most significant categories of informal work for women. The low costs of entry and flexible hours make street vending an attractive option for poor women; for many, it is the only option.

In many countries, women represent the majority of street vendors. In Africa: women constitute more than two thirds of street traders in the main cities of Benin, Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, and Togo, and more than half in Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, and South Africa (Herrera 2012; Budlender 2011; ILO 2002). Women also form a majority of street traders in some cities in Asia and Latin America, including Hanoi (79%), Ho Chi Minh City (67%), and Lima (65%). In only a few countries where cultural norms restrict women’s economic activities do women account for 10 per cent or less of street vendors."

They also choose to leave the formal sector because the wages given are much less than what they are making from selling on the streets.

There are many reason for women to partake in street vending.

The list goes:

• Gender inequality
• Lack of jobs in the formal sector
• Incomplete education
• Preference (the freedom and ability to be their own boss)
• Only means to support their family

the list goes on and on but these seem to be the most major of them.

Reference

 Anderson, Philip M.,Kecia Hayes, Joe L. Kincheloe, Karel Rose, eds. The Praeger Handbook of Urban Education.Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc, 2006. Accessed March 25, 2014. http://books.google.tt/books?id=-nMhuTypMuQC&pg=PA32&dq=port+of+spain+vending&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ByxCU8WgFYK82gW51YGACw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=port%20of%20spain%20vending&f=false.

Women in Informal Employment:Globalizing and Organizing. "Street Vendors." Accessed April 9,2014. http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/street-vendors.

Thugs and Street Vendors

Two pedestrians in the image above walk by a street vendor's stall laden with produce. Do these people ever worry about being robbed? If not for money but for their produce? 

Most vendors still in their stalls all day from the wee hours of the morning till dusk comes. Then they pack up their stalls and go on home. There is always the worry of being robbed as this transition takes place or even during the day. It is so easy these days for people to get robbed, especially people who are trying to make an honest living.

Sometimes one must wonder... is all this worth it? Why not turn to a life of crime?

Yet these vendors struggle on to try and make ends meet. The struggle is all too real.

Why isn't anyone doing anything to help them you might ask.

Well sometimes vendors are victimised by criminals and it may be easy pickings for them. Some of the vendors do not report the robberies to the police or the press because they are selling illegally on the streets and would be found out and removed if they do so. There are also the times when a case is reported and people have been told that they should not be selling on the streets.

In recent times the amount of police presence has been increased in the capital area thus, making it more safe for street vendors and pedestrians alike.

Reference

Cliggett, Lisa, Christopher A. Pool, eds. Economies and The Transformation of Landscape. Alta Mira Press, 2008. Accessed April 10,2014. http://books.google.tt/books?id=C2_TWYAKH9cC&pg=PA279&dq=street+vendors+and+robberies&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eGdHU-GtLIXa2QWcioGYDA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=street%20vendors%20and%20robberies&f=false.

Vending as a way to ease joblessness?

The picture above depicts George Street, Port of Spain as can be seen from it's caption. A young man is choosing out his pick of the produce on display as the man in the striped jersey, with the hat on his head strikes up his cigarette. It might be possible that, that's the young mans father or he could just be a regular customer. The roast coffee skinned man in blue- the owner, looks on while casually devouring his orange this bright day.The streets have a clean coat of asphalt which strikes a strange contrast to the bleak, drab, run down exteriors of buildings.

This man could have been laid off from work or unable to find another form of employment due to the fields being saturated or some kind of injury that prevents him from doing so.

Using their own produce from their home grown vehicles, these people pack their items onto their vehicles and make their way to the urban centre (Port of Spain) where they proceed to sell their goods. Some really don't have a choice and they may not even want to be street vending. Due to several circumstances they have no choice but to

Street vending is a plausible productive way to ease joblessness in several ways. Some are people have lost their jobs, women whose husbands have lost their jobs and in the anticipation of being laid off from work.There are no other ways or means for persons to get a form of income so they turn to the streets. It is a much better outcome than turning to a life of crime. Street vending could also make some friendly competition for the store owners who surround them, forcing them to drop their prices in order to entice  customers to move away from the vendors and back to them.

So while people are street vending they may very well be looking for another form of employment but for the mean time until they can move on from this. They may even keep street vending if it proves to provide a substantial income form them or only street vend on weekends if they do happen to get back into the formal sector. 

 Street vending should not be hindered but promoted!

References

The Society Pages. "Street vending as a way to ease joblessness." Accessed April 10,2014. http://thesocietypages.org/citings/2009/04/30/street-vending-as-a-way-to-ease-joblessness/

Have street vendors been given a space? (part 2 of 2)

Street vendors cover both sides of the street and stretch as as the eye could see along Charlotte Street, Port of Spain. Many people go about their business, stopping here and there to look at goods or make some purchases. Vendors sit in their stalls tending to their goods, promote their stock to customers in a boisterous manner or are busy conducting transactions with customers.

Even though the city has been planned in a way there is no room or available space for street vendors, the city of Port of Spain has made a compromise. Street vendors have been given provisions to vend on certain streets such as Charlotte Street and George Street. The city of Port of Spain is made up of planned and unplanned areas. The central business district is also located in this area. The urban structure of Port of Spain is in a way similar to Ullman and Harris multiple nuclei model of urban land use. These are the lower class residents supporting their selves by making use of the the informal sector.

References

Scribd. "Port of Spain Case Study." Accessed March 10, 2014. http://www.scribd.com/doc/19552480/Port-of-Spain-Case-Study.

Do street vendors deserve urban space? (part 1 of 2)

The photo above was taken a early Saturday morning at approximately nine thirty. My parents and I had just left the Port of Spain market and were going to continue to purchase other vegetables which they did not find in the market or they thought was too expensive. I decided to accompany them on their little walk about to obtain pictures for my blog, for the Introduction to Urban Geography course. We drove through the back streets of Port of Spain until we came to George Street, my father found a suitable parking spot in a vacant lot and we disembarked the vehicle. With my camera in hand I quickly scanned the entire street as far as I could see for potential pictures. 

What I liked most about this picture is that it generally showed the first things that saluted my eyes as i surveyed the area. That is how lonely the street was but, that was understandable because Port of Spain starts working at nine o'clock. The second thing was that all the stalls or vehicles which were used to sell produce were parked in the drain area of the street. Lastly only the left hand side of the road was occupied by vendors.

Now raises the question after seeing these vendors whose stalls were in the drain, the question arises: Do street vendors deserve urban space?

The answer to this question may be a yes or a no depending on the persons who are asked. They take advantage of the busy city center and the people who work there. This is also unique to developing nations of the world. This informal sector brings the availability of market goods to the urban center so that the occupants of the area would not have to venture far in order to do their market or other forms of shopping. 

In order to answer this question the concept of urban informality needs to be understood. According to Indonesia's Urban Studies Blog,
 

"The concept of urban informality started from the dichotomy between the formal sector and the informal sector discussed in the early 1970s. The informal sector is a very common phenomenon that occurs in developing countries. The percentage of the informal sector in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia ranges between 30-70 percent of the total workforce. In Indonesia, according to data from the Statistics Central Bureau (BPS) in February 2008, 73.53 million out of 102.05 million (72%) workers worked in the informal sectors.

The dichotomy of the formal and informal sectors often ignores the importance of the informal sectors with respect to urban spaces. The informal sectors are often marginalized in the urban spaces, even though the informal sectors account for 70% of the urban employment."

Trinidad is still a developing nation despite what the newspapers and the prime minister says. We might be the most 'developed' in the Caribbean but that does not mean we are fully developed. Street vending has been an occupation that people have done since the dawn of time.

The problems that arise for street vendors and why they vend on the street is due to the lack of available space for them in the urban center. 

Space according to Doreen Massey can be posed in three forms. Space is the product of interrelations. Where people must recognize that space is 'as constituted through interactions, it is the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity and is always under construction. 

Urban spatial planning was not based on the understanding of the urban informality concept and governments will tend to ignore the demand for spaces to accommodate the informal sector, including street vendors.The spaces in urban areas are dominated by urban sectors that carry high economic value thus marginalizing the street vendors.

It needs to be realized that when the concept of urban informality is implement street vendors who are considered the rejects of society who failed to enter the economic system in urban areas, would be the ones who are the main modes in the urban transformation of the urban economy. They are one component of the urban economy that will benefit urban development.

So in answer to the questions: do street vendors deserve urban space?

In my honest opinion... yes, they do.

References

Massey, Doreen. For Space. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2005,9. 

"Do street vendors deserve an urban space?," Indonesia's Urban Studies, October 21, 2008, http://indonesiaurbanstudies.blogspot.com/2008/10/do-street-vendors-deserve-urban-space.html.