From garbage pickers to tamale sellers, workers in the informal economy can account for half the workforce in developing cities. They should be respected as an important constituency.
Street Vendors contribute a vital part of city life, whether they're selling tea from the back of their bikes or carrying a cooler of tamales, they should be treated as an important resource Tanvi Misra argues in a piece for CityLab. "And yet they face numerous barriers to economic, political, and social integration—many of which are set up by the city itself. This is a common state of affairs in the urban centers of developing countries, but it doesn’t have to be," Misra writes.
Cities could do a lot for these vendors, by giving out more permits, and having strict oversite and greater transparency to avoid the corruption that can be part of that process. "Informal workers—like street vendors, waste-pickers who earn money for recycling trash; people who make textiles, garments, shoes, electronics, and other products at home—make up 50 to 80 percent of employment of cities in developing countries," Misra reports.
A World Resource Institute paper suggests three strategies to aid this vital part of cities:
- Increased access to public resources
- Revised laws to include informal workers in decision making
- Greater integration of informal workers into the local government
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