Decriminalize Street Vending: Reform and Social Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Dunn
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Space ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
The Great Recession

This chapter outlines how race- and class-based stratification and criminalization shape New York City’s street vending industry. The vast majority of New York’s street vendors are first generation immigrants of color who experience racial profiling for turning urban public space into their workplace. Since the Great Recession, a small but growing class of native-born and highly educated actors have been able to enter this profoundly criminalized industry with comparative ease largely due to class and race privileges, spurring gentrification through the city’s underground food permit rental market. The author argues that any meaningful reform of New York’s broken system of street vending oversight must directly engage these inequities and work to decriminalize poor and working class street vendors of color through a participatory and inclusive process rooted in principles of social justice.

scholarly journals Raumaneignungen, Regeln und Profite in Dhakas Feld des Straßenhandels – Sozialgeographische Erklärungsversuche auf Grundlage von Bourdieus Theorie der Praxis

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Etzold
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
The State ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Urban South ◽  
Spatial Appropriation

Abstract. The paper discusses street vendors' spatial appropriations and the governance of public space in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The much debated question in social geography how people's position in social space relates to their position in physical space (and vice versa) stands at the centre of the analysis. I use Bourdieu's Theory of Practice to discuss this dialectic relation at two analytical levels. On a micro-political level it is shown that the street vendors' social positions and the informal rules of the street structure their access to public space and thus determine their "spatial profits". At a macro-political level, it is not only the conditions inside the "field of street vending" that matter for the hawkers, but also their relation to the state-controlled "field of power". The paper demonstrates that Bourdieu's key ideas can be linked to current debates about spatial appropriation and informality. Moreover, I argue that Bourdieu's theory builds an appropriate basis for a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography in the Urban South.

“My Parents Want Me to Be Something in Life, Like a Lawyer or a Hero”

Kids at Work ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Emir Estrada
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Educational Aspirations ◽  
Street Children ◽  
Academic Goals ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Children And Parents

This chapter shows that all of the parents in this study want their children to go to school and become professionals. The parents use street vending work as a scaring mechanism and motivation to push their children to excel in school as elements of immigrant bargaining. None of the youth want to be street vendors for the rest of their lives. They talked about their educational aspirations in a social justice framework, and their academic goals were motivated by their street vending experience and the inequalities they and their parents experience in the street. Children and parents alike said that work provided valuable lessons and skills that could be used in school, and I observed how work allowed them to create social networks that increased their social capital. Their educational and occupational trajectory is shaped by a collectivist immigrant bargain framework.

scholarly journals Streets as Public Spaces: Lessons from Street Vending in Ahmedabad, India

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prithvi Deore ◽  
Saumya Lathia
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Definition Of

Public spaces go beyond the typical definition of being an open space. They reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the urban fabric and hold the power to create memories. Among all public spaces, streets emerge as the most public. Streets are engines of economic activities, social hubs, and platforms for civic engagement. They break socio-economic divides and foster social cohesion. Planning, designing, and managing better public spaces have become important global discussions. Sustainable Development Goals (8 and 11) and the New Urban Agenda emphasize the significance of inclusive and sustainable economy and safe, accessible and quality public spaces for all. The proposed article uses the case of street vending to understand the manifestation of these goals in an Indian context by assessing street vendors’ role in Ahmedabad’s urban fabric through extensive spatial analysis of 4,000 vendors at four different time points of the day, perception studies of their clientele disaggregated by gender, income and age, and their relationship with surrounding land-use and street hierarchy. It showcases how street vendors make the streets more vibrant by increasing activities, safer through ensuring inflow of people, and inclusive in its true sense by allowing people from different backgrounds to participate in the exchange of goods and services. It further argues that street vendors are vital elements of more equitable and exciting streets and public space.

“Recovering” public space and race: Afro-Colombian street vendors in Bogotá, Colombia

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Munoz
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Social ◽  
Black Bodies

Bogotá, Colombia is one of the largest migrant-receiving cities in the Americas, and in the last two decades, the city has received an influx of over one million people displaced by internal violent political conflicts. Currently, the Afro-Colombian population constitutes approximately 10% of the total population, but continues to be highly concentrated in the lowest socioeconomic strata in the Pacific region of Colombia. Informal vending in Bogotá is comprised of primarily rural and/or internally displaced migrants, including Afro-Colombians and indigenous populations who journey to large urban centers in search of better education and income opportunities and a higher quality of life. In this paper, I argue that Afro-Colombians endure higher marginality and discrimination as street vendors than self-identified as mestizos. Thus, Black bodies are multiple marked by discourses of crime, displacement, and undesirability in public spaces. In addition, street vending in Bogotá is understood by urban scholars as well as the local state as a classed struggle, this understanding through class effectively deracializes the informal vending landscape, while also further reifying the invisibility of Black racialized bodies in Bogotá’s equality discourses. The failure to recognize the diverse racial makeup of informal vendors and understanding these struggles only through class obscure the social and economic realities encountered by racialized bodies in public space.

Street Vendors Claiming Respect and Dignity in the Neoliberal City

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Victoria Quiroz-Becerra
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Free Enterprise ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Grassroots Organizing ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
The City

This chapter examines grassroots organizing around street vending in New York City since 2003, with particular emphasis on the debates surrounding vending in the city and the ways in which the issue has been framed by both activists and government officials. It begins with a discussion of the claims of street vendors within the context of neoliberal forms of urban governance and their contestation, asking how they work within and contest neoliberal forms of governance. It then considers two main issues faced by street vendors in New York City, one related to enforcement of street-vending rules and regulations, the other related to licensing and permits. It takes a look at one organization, Esperanza del Barrio, to find out how it uses ideas of respect, dignity, and rights to frame its advocacy of street vendors. The chapter shows that grassroots activists and their supporters have framed the demands of street vendors by appealing to ideas of free enterprise and individualism.

scholarly journals Street Businesses in Addis Ababa: Causes, Consequences and Administrative Interventions

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (Number 1) ◽  
pp. 69-92
Author(s):  
Jemal Abagissa
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Addis Ababa ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Direct Government

Street vending has long been a source of debate among development economists. It has been argued that direct government intervention that aids this sector will encourage rural to urban migration. Others have argued that this sector deserves government help as often more than 50% of the urban labour force is employed by this sector. This study is designed to assess the causes, consequences and administrative interventions of street vending in Addis Ababa with particular reference to Yeka sub-city. Data were collected from randomly selected samples of 330 street vendors, 14 code enforcers and 9 government officials through questionnaires and interview of key respondents. The finding shows most of the traders came from outside Addis Ababa in search of jobs. Street vending proliferated as a way of life and a coping mechanism adopted by those economically under privileged segment of the society. Factors that led to street vending were complex and varied. According to the findings, absence of opportunity in the formal sector was the main factor that led the operators to street vending. This is followed by the need to support their family and themselves. The authorities stated that unless managed well street vending will have negative impact on traffic movement, encroach on public space and create unfair completion with formal businesses. To mitigate these problems the city administration has issued street vending regulation No. 5 in 2018 so that specific vending plots are allocated and the vendors need to do their business legally and those who fail to follow the rules will be dealt with by the law.

Street Vending in Los Angeles

Kids at Work ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Emir Estrada
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Migration ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Political Turmoil

Chapter 2 situates the study historically in the context of U.S. and Mexican migration and traces the formation of the street vending economy in urban centers in México and in U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and New York. The chapter demonstrates that street vending across the border is linked to macro structural forces and is not solely derivative of Latinx cultural practices. The chapter also highlights the historical precedent of street vending in the United States, as opposed to portraying the work as a direct cultural transplant from Latin America. The Latinx street vendors in Los Angeles immigrated to a society where street vending had been an economic strategy since the early nineteenth century. The chapter notes that as a result of both political turmoil and the rise of a foodie culture based on “authenticity,” attitudes toward street vendors are becoming more sympathetic and respectful, leading to the decriminalization of street vending across the state of California.

Living the Third Shift

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emir Estrada ◽  
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Triple Shift ◽  
Third Shift ◽  
Gendered Expectations ◽  
Latina Girls ◽  
Depth Interviews

This chapter examines gendered expectations resulting not only from the intersecting relations of race and class but also from the age as well as the inequality of nations that gives rise to particular patterns of international labor migration. Drawing on nine months of ethnographic observations and twenty in-depth interviews with Latina/o adolescent street vendors (sixteen girls and four boys) in Los Angeles, the chapter investigates how Latina girls negotiate a triple shift: street vending, household work, and schoolwork. It also explores the continuities between gendered household divisions of labor and street vending, whether the girls see “third-shift” work obligations as a burden or as a source of empowerment, and how the work that girls do as street vendors both perpetuates and challenges gendered expectations.

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