Bringing order to the city: informal street trading in the Johannesburg CBD
Date
2009-05-05T11:56:27Z
Authors
Bantubonse, Yvonne Bwalya
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Abstract
Informal street trading has played a role in the decline of the inner city. In restoring the
inner city to its splendor and attracting people plus investments back into it, there has
been an acknowledgement of informal street trading and a move to organise the activity.
The City of Johannesburg has taken action towards dealing with informal street trading
within the CBD by having trading and non-trading zones, constructing markets and
providing stalls along pavements in busy streets from where traders can sell. This study
was carried out as a response to the major issue at hand of cleaning up the city and
ridding the streets of informal traders and only letting them trade in a controlled manner
preferably in enclosed markets. While not dwelling on matters of whether regulating
traders is good or bad, the main purpose of the study was to probe into the systemisation
of informal street trading in the CBD, further investigating the alternative of a street
market as that which can be done in other parts of the inner city as a means of keeping
the vibrancy of the city through the provision of minimal infrastructure.
Hence, this study explored the functionality of a street market plus certain issues
pertaining to informal street trading in terms of what is being done in regulating the
activity, whether trading permits are being issued and whether traders are more secure
trading from designated trading areas. The outcomes were then used to outline any
lessons learned from the case study that can in turn be applied or be used as an insight to
other parts of the inner city. In analysing informal street trading in the inner city and Kerk
Street, street market it was shown that the provision of minimal infrastructure through a
street market enables informal street trading to be controlled and managed in a well
organised open environment while maintaining a vibrant area in which both traders and
passer-bys are able to interact.
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Keywords
Informal street trading, Inner city Johannesburg, Street market