A moralist theory and the persistence of street vending : the case study of Kampala City - Uganda

Abstract

This paper employs the moralist theory to explain: the endurance of street vending practices in Kampala city. It used perceptions of law enforcement officials and street space users towards street vending practices. The concept of saturation was used to determine sample size, whereby 148 respondents that included six law enforcement officers, 34 cyclists, 29 merchants, 34 motorists and 45 pedestrians were interviewed. Respondents were selected from various streets according to time of vending, intensity of street vending, spatial distribution of the streets, types of goods sold, age, gender and purpose on the street. Other key informants interviewed were law enforcement officers, technocrats from the city authority and representatives of street vendors’ associations. These were integrated with observations and reviews of grey literature in the urban management, trade and policy reports from Kampala capital city authority. Scholarly literature included the demand side theories of street enterprises such as the formal economy failure theory, the financial gain theory, the social or redistributive rationale theory and the multi-feature theory. Similarly, supply side theories of street vending such as the modernization theory, the post-modern theory, the structuralist theory and neo-liberal theory, concepts such as neoliberal urbanism and right to the city offered frames of data analysis. Findings indicate that it is difficult to enforce laws against street vending, partly because of the moral obligations instinctively felt by those supposed to enforce the laws. We recommend that street vending be included into mainstream city planning and management, because it contributes to urban livelihoods and contributes to the sustenance of the formal and informal economies.