Urban Planning principles as mechanisms for improving informal trading opportunities: A case study of inner-city Johannesburg
Master Thesis
2018
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University of Cape Town
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The inner city of Johannesburg presents a high number of informal traders who seek to make use of urban public space in their livelihood strategies. However, the forces driving the performance of informal traders have not led to positive development of opportunities for traders. Operation Clean Sweep in 2013, was a means of strongly enforcing the informal trading by-laws and removing traders from the pavements and public spaces in the inner-city Johannesburg. Regulation of informal trade has been conducted by the progressively formulated informal trading policy, however, it possesses ineffective implementation strategies. This research addresses the driving forces that affect informal traders' opportunities and the issues that arise from these present forces. The three driving forces which are of greatest impact on informal traders and are investigated in this research, institutions, regulatory and infrastructural forces. The study shows that informal traders experience complex dual realities affected by these driving forces and their need to engage in the informal economy to meet their livelihood strategies. The research seeks to address the use of urban public space by informal traders in meeting their needs, while understanding how these spaces are shaped and determined. The study aims at evaluating the performance of three case study areas located within the inner-city Johannesburg. The performance is measured in terms of meeting the needs of informal traders and providing opportunities for their economic and social development, while ensuring that the needs of the collective public are addressed as well. The background reading and desktop study were used to establish research questions before conducting interviews. These interviews were conducted with informal traders, government officials, private sector, NGOs and civil society. Using case study and discourse analysis methods, and the previously mentioned techniques, this study addresses the issues that informal traders face in light of the driving forces. It also examines how these have shaped the performance of urban pubic space in meeting the needs of informal traders as well as the collective public. The study aims to address these issues with urban planning principles and supplements these with policy recommendations to improve opportunities afforded to informal traders. While the recommendations put forward in this study require a long-term plan, such a plan also requires improved integration between governing departments and managing bodies. This research aims to improve this integration and governing structure, through recommending that increased responsibility for informal trading be taken up by the Johannesburg City Council Development Planning Department.
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Jonathan, L. 2018. Urban Planning principles as mechanisms for improving informal trading opportunities: A case study of inner-city Johannesburg. University of Cape Town.