Contested Space: Street Trading, Public Space, and Livelihoods in Developing Countries

by Alison Brown

The importance of public space in supporting city economies and in contributing to poverty reduction is rarely recognized. Instead, public space is more often an arena for contest - between municipal governments or other vested interests, and street traders, whose activities are proscribed by restrictive social norms, ambiguous legal status, street violence, or an official response that vacillates between indifference and eviction. Based on a research study in four developing cities - Dar Es Salaam, Kumasi, Maseru, and Kathmandu - Contested Space explores the survival strategies of street traders and their relationships with city governments, and examines the practical and policy implications for pro-poor street management. This is essential reading for all those interested in innovative city governance, for planners, NGOs, students, academics, and practitioners in Development Studies and Urban Development.

268 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

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Alison Brown is Professor of Urban Planning and International Development in the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, UK. She is an urban planner, whose research focuses on urbanization and development policy, local governance and urban law, livelihoods, the urban informal economy and post-conflict cities, and she has published widely on the informal economy and rights-based approaches to development. She was Principal Investigator on the research project Making Space for the Poor: Law, Rights, Regulation and Street-Trade in the 21st Century, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)/Department for International Development (DFID) Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research, reported in this book. She was an expert adviser to Habitat III, the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (as a member of Policy Unit 1 on the Right to the City and Cities for All) and has written specialist development Topic Guides for DFID on planning for sustainable cities in the global south and livelihoods and urbanisation. She is a board member of the NGO Reall (formerly Homeless International) and planning adviser to the global network WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing).