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.
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.
"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.
1 comments:
My research into street vending has included books about the historical aspects of vending in Europe and the United States. Also, documents by a professor in Chicago who participated and studied the famous outdoor Maxwell Street Market, that survived for well over 100 years operating on Sundays only.
Some highlights - in Europe, families of vendors transported goods and establishes a well documented banking system of loans and credits. In the USA, vendors were often the only source of news in the remote rural areas as they traveled on foot or by horse. In all three, Europe, USA, and Chicago many vendors eventually became brick and mortar store fronts.
Street vending is THE original training ground for learning the business skills to run a business and manage employees. Sales techniques, marketing, customer and neighborhood relationships, budgeting, accounting and banking, sub-contracting local kids to delivery or run errands.
Vendors are not JUST making a Living, the are being educated by the University of Hardknocks. The same way our ancestors did it hundreds of years ago. Let me ask you a question... What is the oldest written record that your can find that refers to an outdoor vendor? The oldest one I found, so far, is when a famous religious leader kicked out tables of currency exchangers and sellers of pigeons for sacrifices.
Many of our movies use streetvendors/markets as
back drops for scenes, modern and historical.
Cities need to understand that many ”informal” vendors WANT TO BE formal store fronts, if they can get a few breaks and are allowed to save their very hard earned money without being robbed by city employees or street thugs.
Do some research on the power in the Agglomeration of economies - which is visible in shopping malls, they all have ”gentrified” street vendors on their indoor ”sidewalks!”
Keep up the discussion and support small business and micro-enterprises.
:-)
@VendorAid on Twitter.
Post a Comment