Statistics demonstrate that the majority of urban dwellers survive through working in the informal economy.  Yet there is wide recognition both in policy and academic arenas (UN Habitat, 2009; Watson, 2009, Roy, 2005; 2009) that dominant urban planning approaches are not well placed to manage, let alone support informal livelihoods.  Warwick Junction, the primary transport node in Durban, on a busy day houses as many as 8000 street traders.  Since 1995 the area has been the site of a collaborative planning process that within a few years had become widely recognised as a model of sensitive integration of street traders into urban plans.  Professor Keith Hart, who coined the phrase 'informal sector', commented after a visit to the area in 2007 'Warwick Junction has provided exhilarating proof of how poor people, in sensitive collaboration with urban planners, can enliven a city centre, generate employment for themselves and expanded services for the population at large'.  The seminar draws on a documentation of the Warwick Junction case (in part reflected in the book Working in Warwick) but aims to particularly highlight the principles this case suggests for planning 'for' the informal economy.  In January 2009 the City Council however announced its plans to build a large shopping mall in Warwick Junction threatening the livelihoods of all street traders in the area as well as this case of inclusive urban planning.  The seminar concludes by analysing these recent developments.  It is argued that the Warwick Junction case presents a challenge to how we imagine cities in the South and where (and indeed how) poorer residents fit.      

See africancentreforcities.net/publications/6 and Agenda 2009 or download paper here

Caroline Skinner is a senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities, at the University of Cape Town and Urban Policies Programme Director for the global research/policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing.  She currently manages a virtual research unit on the urban informal economy in the global South.