Description
Book SynopsisThis book analyses how informal economy traders and the marketplace institution dominate the local economy in African cities. According to the World Bank, being an African reduces the probability that an individual is an entrepreneur in the manufacturing sector by more than 95 percent. Exporting unprocessed strategic raw materials and importing large volumes of finished goods stagnate Africa’s informal sector while creating formal jobs overseas. This suggests employment increases in distributive trade and persistence of the marketplace institution in reducing urban unemployment and income inequality. However, there is limited knowledge of the men and women with permanent stalls in large urban marketplaces that function daily as a temporary city within a city, even though they are the major actors in distribute trade. More important their daily out-of-stall contacts resulting from maintaining complex social and economic relationships that determine the financial health of family, business, and the economy are generally unexplored and largely unknown, but have significant unintended consequences on the urban mobility system. Researchers, planners, development practitioners and policymakers have, therefore, not focused their attention and considered the impacts of the powerful economic institution – marketplaces and traders - in framing transport planning processes and urban development policies, and that is the paradox surrounding marketplace trade and urban development in West Africa.
Table of ContentsChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Marketplace Entrepreneurs and Urban Mobility infrastructureChapter 3: Onitsha: The Largest market in Nigeria - One of the largest in West AfricaChapter 4: Challenges Facing Urban Marketplace TradersChapter 5: Attributes Impacting Out-of-Stall ContactsChapter 6: A Geography of Contacts in a Large Urban MarketplaceChapter 7: Sustainability of Marketplace Institution and TradersChapter 8: Planning and Policy Support for Marketplace Trade
