Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

This brief focuses on the politics of street vending in Los Angeles. The topic is especially salient now as the city expands its investments in design and planning interventions to activate public space, streets and sidewalks, for local economic development, and to encourage public transit and transportation alternatives to the automobile. Driven by the “smart growth” imperatives of increasing density in the urban core and transit-oriented development, “complete streets” initiatives, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s Great Streets Initiative for example, offer a particular, state-sanctioned, vision of the city. What is the relationship between street vending and current forms of redevelopment in L.A.? Does the everyday urbanism of street vendor culture fit these rational planning paradigms? At stake here is a political encounter between the economic and cultural practices of street vendors and the state’s vision for redeveloping the city. Street vendor policy will be largely shaped by this encounter.