![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
Abstract
The paper interrogates how street trading is governed in contemporary cities of the South, based on the example of Johannesburg. It excavates policy choices made by municipal officials and politicians, understood through the set of policy instruments (not only policy documents, institutions and tools, but also non-tools) that they have framed and used for almost two decades, beyond public rhetoric that is arguably misleading. The paper provides a critical analyzis of policy instruments for governing street trading, scantly absent from existing literature, it also brings back into the urban studies debate issues of municipal officials’ agency, political objectives and policy choices.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The centre has a tradition of engaged research (see also Endnote 8).
2. In a narrow sense, as these studies often are empirically restricted to the study of public policy documents, due to the difficulties in accessing more internal policy dynamics that I capture here under the concept of ‘policy instruments’ (including but not limited to public policy documents).
3. This term is tricky, as it refers both to a concept in urban studies (see Box 1), and a body of work (the ‘governance approach’) that I argue has focused predominantly on networks and less on policy instruments, choices and their impacts on the city.
4. A progressive approach to street trading is defined as combining inclusivity (recognising existing users as legitimate stakeholders, engaging with them in the definition of policy goals and implementation, not based on the eviction of significant numbers of existing traders, i.e. not restrictive) and development (dominated by the desire to assist recipients to develop, rather than sanction them – i.e. not predominantly repressive).
5. See for instance mentions of this in a case study of the management of markets in Pikine, Senegal (Ngom Citation2002).
6. See for instance a short lived example of a street trader cooperative managing a street in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Nnkya Citation2006).
7. This was experienced first hand by the author in the aftermath of Operation Clean Sweep in Johannesburg, where the City-led evictions were followed by a series of court cases led by trader organizations, ending in their victory against the City in the Constitutional Court in 2014. However, difficulty in accessing information, documents and officials pre-existed this legal battle.
8. Yeoville Studio was a community-oriented research initiative (2010–2012) where CUBES and the School of Architecture and Planning partnered with three civil society organizations in Yeoville, to frame locally relevant research, by coordinating teaching and research initiatives around jointly determined topics. See https://www.wits.ac.za/archplan/interdisciplinary-engagement/yeoville-stories—-yeoville-studio/.
9. I wish to thank here a number of colleagues and students whose research has contributed to framing a collective body of knowledge on the sector, emerging from the Yeoville Studio: in particular Aly Karam, Mbula Khwashaba, Kwanda Lande, Mamokete Matjomane, Antonio Pezzano, Margot Rubin, as well as Marie Daniel and Kate Tissington.
10. AFTRAX, Alternative Formalities, Translocalism and Xenophobia. I wish to acknowledge here the colleagues involved in the project, which provided a stimulating environment to debate and consolidate ideas (mistakes and interpretations remain mine): Sarah Charlton, Margot Rubin and Tanya Zack in particular.
11. Johannesburg is considered South Africa’s economic capital. In 2011, it counted 4.4 million inhabitants (2011 Census). It is estimated that 23% of its active population is involved in the informal economy in 2013 (36% if including self-employed workers) (Perberdy Citation2015).
12. iGoli 2002, inspired by the Joburg 2030 Strategy, implemented the restructuring of Johannesburg municipality in the early 2000s along new public management principles.
13. Interview with City official, City of Johannesburg: Central Strategy Unit, June 2013.
14. See the list of the state institutions, departments and agencies mentioned in the text, in the Annexure.
15. Reframed as the Department of Economic Development in 2006.
16. A noticeable exception in 2004 was the sudden and contested roll-out of 1000 trading stalls (called the ‘iron cages’) in inner-city streets (Dinath and Zack Citation2014), in contradiction of rules and without any consultation with property owners or traders. I understand it as the possible expression of strong, once-off political pressure, i.e. ‘letting the steam off’; however, it has not significantly changed the municipal approach.
17. The Central Johannesburg Partnership (CJP) is a non-profit coalition of business people and private companies grounded in inner-city Johannesburg and dedicated to the regeneration of the inner city, in partnership with the City, since the early 1990s.
18. It is interesting to note that this document was developed in parallel with the Inner City Road Map, a participatory process whose pro-poor and inclusive principles are in blatant contradiction with the Clean Sweep initiative (in spite of the Planning Department being involved in both processes).
19. For 2700 registered traders at the time.
20. As illustrated by its request for Wits University to explore the state of knowledge on informal economies for the City of Johannesburg, under the AFTRAX project (Dinath and Zack Citation2014).
21. See Section 3 of this paper.
22. Some of the relevant officials took official leave during the Operation (personal conversation, 2015).
23. In the August 2016 local government election, the ANC lost in Johannesburg and a number of metropolitan municipalities to the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.
24. See Endnote 12.
25. Cf. Annexure for the list of acronyms.
26. The government of street trading is exclusively referred to, in municipal language, as street trading ‘management’ – a nuisance in the inner-cityscape, that needs to be ‘managed’ to mitigate its assumed negative effects.
27. The Mayor’s flagship project, the Corridors of Freedom, is based on a rapid bus network linking former townships to places of economic opportunities. He has been driving this project with and though an empowered and resourced Transport Department in the City.
28. Partly due to the taxi associations’ refusal to pay rent (Pernegger Citation2016), and traders unequal (and declining) acceptance to do so.
29. See CJP submission in the Constitutional Court case (CJP Citation2014).
30. CUBES trader organizations workshop, Johannesburg, 25.09.2014 (see also Clark Citation2014).
31. CoJ consultation process: Inner City Promulgation and Designation of Trading Areas, Johannesburg, 29 July–6 August 2014.
32. If one judges it by the eagerness of trader leaders to attend these meetings, in spite of them being irregular, always announced in a rush, and without an agenda nor minutes.
33. See Endnote 16.
34. In 2014, DED announced that there were 2700 registered street traders in total (on both MTC and CJP databases). The CJP database apparently includes 1000–1300 street traders (depending on the source).
35. In reaction against the apartheid fragmentation of racially defined municipalities with unequal tax bases, post-apartheid legislation explicitly restricted the ability of (integrated) municipalities to ring-fence budget towards specific areas – especially operational budgets, which are needed for urban management.
36. See Endnote 11.
37. The verification process was also a way for officials to cancel the trading permits allocated to foreign traders, calling the Department of Home Affairs to check their status in the country, or re-attributing their stall or their smart card to (loyal) South African traders (Bénit-Gbaffou Citation2014).
38. A consultants’ report for MTC (Muhle Citation2008) mentions a baseline survey of informal traders conducted for MTC, which estimates the number of street traders in the inner city at about 7000 in 2008. This figure has however never been released in public documents or engagements.
39. There was much chaos in the room when one junior engineering consultant, presenting the Transport view on the trading plan to an audience of traders, insisted that from a technical point of view, no trading should be allowed on sidewalks narrower than 5 m (DED workshop, 19 May 2015) as there are almost no such sidewalks in the inner city!