the impeccable logic of development ...

... comes at the very end of this article on India's huge informal economy from The Hindu. Given the continued growth of System D in India, even in an era of unprecedented total economic growth,

It must be the case that there are many areas where the informal sector is not only not in competition with the formal sector, but actually services its requirements....In the process low wages in the informal economy help sustain profits in the formal sector. Only when this possibility is taken into account can we explain the size and scope of India’s informal economy.

After all that's been written about informality in the four decades since Keith Hart coined the term in 1973, shouldn't this be the start of any analysis rather than the tentative conclusion.

the media menace

The bus seems to have enough space, and the lane of tuk-tuks and motorcycles doesn't seem unduly compressed. So how is this street market in Kalamboli, a major transportation hub of Navi Mumbai, in suburban Bombay, a 'menace,' as DNAindia reports?

This editorial attitude is typical of much of the news coverage of street hawkers in India. The photo suggests that there are more shoppers at this bustling transit transfer point than there are merchants -- but nonetheless, the dominant narrative is that the merchants constitute a 'menace.'

The bias exhibited by newspapers and media outlets is the real menace.

Street hawkers naturally gravitate to locations where shoppers are. That's not a menace. Indeed, you might argue it's a public service.

if you build it in the wrong place, they won't come

A dozen years ago, the city of Mumbai spent $4.8 million to build a mall that it thought would allow it to get rid of hawkers near the Dadar train station. But it forgot that street hawking is governed by the same three principles that govern real estate: location, location, location. The new market was far too far from the station for customers to flock to.

As one sensible street vendor told DNAIndia: “I have been carrying on my business from this spot (near the station) for 25 years. I have observed that people get out from the station and shop before going home. Who will go all the way to Plaza Market?”

The news agency reports that the market building is mostly vacant while the streets around the station are as thronged as ever.

More proof that cities must work with street vendors, not against them.

finally, rights on paper!

The Street Vendors Bill that passed the Lok Sabha (India's lower house of parliament) in early September, is a major step in the ongoing battle for dignity and recognition of the validity of informal workers. Sharit Bhowmik, who has studied the plight of the vendors, who are routinely abused by authorities and in the press, terms it "a landmark piece of legislation for the urban poor." Novelist Chandrahas Choudhury salutes street vendors as "the stars of India's vast informal economy -- those without contracts, social security or employer benefits -- inhabited by more than 80 percent of the country's 450 million workforce."

As with all grand policy frameworks, though, what's important is how the Street Vendors Bill will be implemented. For instance, the law suggests that street hawkers will need to register with the Town Vending Committee before they start selling, and apply for a vending certificate "that will be issued based on various criteria." Of course, it's easy to imagine how local politicians could use these rules and criteria to make life more difficult for vendors.

Let's all keep on this and follow the local implementation of this groundbreaking bill.

challenge v. opportunity

Ah, the informal sector. This article from Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette terms it "the major challenge." But the difference between a challenge and an opportunity is the difference between who is doing the describing.

To the merchants of Mupedzanhamo -- Harare's largest street market whose name, loosely translated, means 'poverty reliever' -- selling on the street is their only opportunity for survival. To the political elite in many countries, the fact that people are increasingly embracing that opportunity is a challenge.


The writer calls Harare's streets "a typical example of the dangers of an unbridled informal sector." But the dangers he points to are not created by the street vendors, and, indeed, are hardly dangers at all:

• the market "thrives on chaotic governance."
• "members of the police force have taken advantage of the situation to also protect vendors at a fee."
• business is so brisk at the market called Siyaso, that everyone in the city knows a basic commerical truth: "if in Harare and you cannot find anything, head for Siyaso and you will get it."

These informal markets need change from the "regulatory, planning, moral, as well as human relations perspectives," an urban planner quoted in the article says. "In other words," the reporter suggests, "Zimbabwe’s formal sector must simply dominate and drive the country’s economy."

But the formal sector, the article notes, only employs 10 percent of the people. The bulk of the population works informally, and their labors produce a prodigious amount of wealth: US$4,2 billion. And that's a thirteen-year-old estimate.

It's time for Zimbabwe's government -- and governments all over the world -- to start looking at things from underneath. It's only from analyzing their economies from the bottom-up that they can recognize the opportunities at the root of what today they see as dangers and challenges. The street economy is the economy of the people--which makes it the most important economy on earth.

as pure as a bag of water

Next City offers a nuanced take on 'pure water' -- the system of selling plastic sachets of drinking water.  'Pure water' is the municipal water system of cities that don't have a municipal water system. Equally necessary and nasty, sachet water is, as the article notes, a grand conundrum -- simultaneously "a huge urban economy, its very own black market, an environmental disaster and a private-sector-driven public health coup."

Do laugh at the last quote of the article, though. While it comes from the mouth of a University of Miami professor, it's a great example of one of the favorite sports of West Africa--Nigeria-bashing. I dey go Las Gidis many times, and I've never seen river water bagged as 'pure water.' Indeed, all pure water companies are registered with and inspected by NAFDAC--Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control--and I don't know anyone there who would drink any bag of water that didn't have NAFDAC certification.

the world's most open border

The Associated Press reports on the people who smuggle goods across the 227-mile-long border between the Domincan Republic into Haiti.

Factoid: The Dominican Republic estimates that the country's "14 border markets host more than 50,000 vendors and says Haiti's informal merchants earn about $165 million a year reselling the goods back home. That's in addition to the country's $1.1 billion in formal exports to Haiti."

History: "The Dominican government opened the markets in the early 1990s, when a military regime ruled Haiti and the U.N. imposed an embargo. The markets have since bustled because Haiti's ports are notoriously expensive and rife with red tape and poor infrastructure."

In June, Haiti banned imports of Dominican poultry and eggs, claiming it was defending the country against avian flu. In response, the Dominican Republic closed its border markets for a day.

Perhaps in pursuit of tax revenue, Haiti's government has been trying to crack down on the smuggling, pushing to cut tax-free border trade to just one day a week. This has led to charges that the government of Michel Martelly is soaking the poor while subsidizing the rich, particularly by giving tax breaks to hotel owners so they can build lodging and attract tourists.

As Mario Joseph, a lawyer whose clients have been critical of the Martelly government, told the AP, "The only people paying taxes are the street merchants. The big shots aren't paying."