Cityscape Examines Street Vending

May 10, 2016  

Cityscape Examines Street Vending

The latest issue of Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research features a research symposium on street vending and the use of public space in cities. Guest editors Raphael W. Bostic, Annette M. Kim, and Abel Valenzuela, Jr. introduce the symposium by explaining how street vending epitomizes the challenges of contemporary urban governance, with heated debate over whether its positive contributions, including greater civic vitality and economic development, outweigh its significant costs. The symposium considers vending from a worldwide perspective to gain comparative insights into how varied urban societies can find solutions that serve a broad range of interests.

The symposium articles present empirical findings and several discuss policy implications.

Renia Ehrenfeucht uses evidence from three American cities to examine common assumptions about street vending regulations — that extensive regulations are necessary to protect property interests, prevent pedestrian congestion or other impacts, and to keep the street orderly — and concludes that cities would benefit from an approach that emphasizes community and participatory planning over regulation.

Kathryn A. Carroll, Sean Basinski, and Alfonso Morales use data from New York City vending citations to estimate the influence of several factors on the probability of citation nonpayment and conclude that clearer violation statutes and lower fine amounts would result in more cost-effective enforcement.

Robert Baird, David C. Sloane, Gabriel N. Stover, and Gwendolyn Flynn report on a health impact assessment that reconsiders a ban on sidewalk food vending in Los Angeles, California. They explore the ban's potential impact on the food environment near schools and ways to encourage healthy alternatives for students.

Sally Roever examines how the regulatory environment in five foreign cities results in vendors' precarious legal status and causes low-level harassment, merchandise confiscation, and arbitrary eviction. She explores how legal reform in three cities can lead to a better balance between the "right to livelihood" and the need to govern public space.

Chia Yang Weng and Annette M. Kim find, based on two cases of vendor relocation in a Taiwan public market, that street vendor organizations play a crucial role in relocation, but that relying upon robust vendor organizations to manage markets can have negative consequences, such as bypassing municipal laws and creating a political patronage system.

John Taylor and Lily Song study three Indonesian cities noted for their conflict-free street vendor relocation policies but that have high rates of returning itinerant vendors and discover that relocation programs place more emphasis on aesthetics than location and functionality, ignore vendors' emerging needs, and fail to prepare them for competition in more formal markets.

This issue's "Point of Contention" explores the proposition that by 2050 the U.S. homeownership rate will have fallen by at least 20 percentage points from the current 64 percent of households. Arthur C. Nelson reviews several trends that could drive down homeownership rates to 53.5 percent by 2050. Dowell Myers and Hyojung Lee conclude that a massive change in the homeownership rate is highly unlikely due to cohort momentum and the implausibility of changes in federal housing policies. Arthur Acolin, Laurie S. Goodman, and Susan M. Wachter examine key factors that could drive down homeownership rates but argue that they will not occur. Donald R. Haurin believes that an aging population will cause the homeownership rate to increase to about 66 to 68 percent by 2050.

The issue features one refereed paper. Susan J. Popkin, Janine Zweig, Nan Astone, Reed Jordan, Chantal Hailey, Leah Gordon, and Jay Silverman use a new measure of coercive sexual environment (CSE) and test the hypothesis that living in a CSE is associated with poor mental health outcomes, especially for young women.

One article appears in this issue's regularly appearing "Data Shop" department: "Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to Analyze Housing Decisions, Dynamics, and Effects" by Katherine McGonagle and Narayan Sastry.

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