Street vending and co-production: key lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 global pandemic has prompted governments to resort to or allow quasi-formal means to provide basic goods and services to communities that were forced into quarantine. We analyze how grassroots self-help strategies interact with the adaptation mechanisms of formal governance under crisis conditions. Drawing on empirical insights in Manila (Philippines) and Hanoi (Vietnam), we examine the practices that have enabled street vendors in the two metropolises to earn a living and to provide needed services to city residents. We explain how some lessons on co-production practices might inform post-pandemic recovery strategies and future policy-making processes in global South cities.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• street vending
• co-production
• urban governance
• global south

Acknowledgements

We are profoundly grateful to all street vendors and other interviewees who shared their views and time with us. We also wish to acknowledge Audrey Lopez for helping us enhance some images/diagrams of the collected spatial data. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. All errors remain our responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In many cities enabled by internet and communication technologies, informal trading has also been conducted through virtual marketplaces (Thai et al., 2021), leading to greater possibilities of co-producing, involving more stakeholders, such as formal members of the private sector.

2 All names in this paper are pseudonyms used to protect the identity of the research participants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Redento B. Recio

Redento B. Recio is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Informal Urbanism (InfUr-) Research Hub within the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. His research interests include informal livelihoods, social inclusion and urban governance issues in global South cities.

José Edgardo A. Gomez

José Edgardo A. Gomez Jr. is a Professor of urban studies at the University of the Philippines’ School of Urban & Regional Planning. His research has covered topics in institutional and social development, streetscapes, urban culture and history.

Ha Minh Hai Thai

Ha Minh Hai Thai is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University. Ha has more than 15 years of experience practising architecture and urban design in Vietnam, China, UK and Australia. His research focuses include informal urbanism, temporary and tactical urbanism, space syntax, urban morphology, building typology, smart cities, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Phuong Thu Nguyen

Phuong Thu Nguyen received her PhD from the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University. Her research interests lie in the areas of housing economics, health economics and labour economics.