Rethinking Urban Informality Practice

at Car Free Day Dago, Bandung

FATH NADIZTI
MSc in Urban Studies

Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences

Department of Geography
University College London
 The Structure
1. Urban Informality Definitions, Practices
2. The Gaps
3. Methods
4. Findings
5. Conclusions
6. The Leftover
 Urban Informality
Early 1970s
Economist & social scientists interest on the new
attitudes in employment due to human migration
(Archer, 2013; Davis, 2000; Roy and AlSayyad, 2004)

Informal economy (Reynolds, 1969)

Early 1980s
Leaked into settlement issues (Moser, 1978)
Definitions from Global Institutions (ILO WB,
UN-Habitat, etc.) have limited what informality is
(Roy and AlSayyad, 2004; Roy, 2009)
 What is the impact?
As a mode of urbanization, the richness of its
social aspect is highly overlooked (Certeau and Rendall,
1984).

Informality become the antithesis of formality,

modernity, and development.
Therefore, to attempt development means to
formalize the informal.
 Street Vending Practices
Prior researches on exploring street vending
practices have unfolded another layer in
contemporary urbanism (c.f. Anjaria, 2006; Arabindoo, 2012;
Kurfurst, 2012; Porter et al., 2011)

They potentially convert dead urban spaces into

convivial places (Davis, 2000, p. 55)

Yet, the scope of context and geography are

still limited.
 Therefore
The research aims to challenge the current paradigm
on urban informality using street vending practices at
Car Free Day Dago, Bandung, Indonesia, as the case
study.
 Watching The Cinematic Event
Indonesia contemporary urbanism situation is
ambiguous, and even improbable (Pisani, 2014; Simone,
2014)

Exploring the narrative to give new insight

rather than to offer final and conclusive
solutions.
Ethnography approach.
 Data Gathering
Deep Hanging Out (Geertz, 1998)
Snowballing technique
Participant observation
Regarding the emotional manner to be able to comment
on the culture, society and geography (Laurier, 2010, p.135)
Can be creatively adjusted (Cook, 2005)
Semi structured interview
is not to be representativebut to understand how
individual people experience and make sense of their
own lives. (Valentine, 2005, p.111)
 Timeline and Practicality
A u t o d i a r y
P h o t o d i a r y

+ Semi-structured Interview

Participant Observation

Pre-Observation
To be briefed on the topic
To select participant and
determine the scope

3 10 17 24 31 7 14
MAY 2015 JUNE 2015
 Ir. H. Juanda Street/ Dago

The weekly Car Free Day

program has turned Dago
into a third space (Prasetyo
and Argo, 2014)

THE FOCUS POINT

Street vending practices on Dago-Car-Free Street
The questions remain

How could they illegally exist until now?

How do they negotiate with formal regulations?

Above all, does this practice of urban informality portray

a sign of planning failure?
Politic 01: The Coordinator
 STREET VENDORS
STREET VENDORS
PROSPECTIVE THE COORDINATOR STREET VENDORS
STREET VENDORS STREET VENDORS
STREET VENDORS
Politic 02: The Local Authorities
We have been trying to approach the street vendors via
the coordinator, yet never succeed to move them. Now it
seems like we can do nothing about it. Im not sure if Im
doing the right thing... But as long as they (the street
vendors) dont make any significant disturbance and the
pedestrians arent bothered by their presence, Ill just
keep an eye on them. (Local Authority, 2015)
Politic 03: The Normative Law
The law: Respect And Avoid Unnecessary Conflict
 Conclusions
1. Street vending that relates with misplaced
things are not necessarily failure, rather
intersections of various ways of doing
things, of putting different materiality in
contact, and of playing an often deceptive
game of alternating the visible and the
invisible (Simone, 2014, p. 214)
 Conclusions
2. The street vendors continuously maintain
conceptual distance between urban actors to
aim individual goals Endurance (Simone, 2014)
 Conclusions
3. If the formal regulations are formality and
the way in which they are negotiated is
informality, then formality and informality
coexist together as the organising logic in
daily life (Roy, 2009)
 A sign of The Good City?
...an expanding habit of solidarity, and as a
practical but unsettled achievement,
constantly building on experiments through
which difference and multiplicity can be
mobilised from common gain, and against
harm and want. (Amin, 2007, pp. 1718)
 Some leftover
Do we need to build?
What do architecture, design and planning
really about?
Are they necessary?
How far should we consider the users?

How context-sensitive and self-aware

am I as an architect?
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THANK YOU!