“The informal economy is not necessarily equivalent to the illegal or underground economy. But then why do these activities that could be included within regulatory frameworks fall outside it? Within my research I have identified two different dynamics. On the one hand, there is an old informal economy, particularly in the global south. But there is also a new informal economy, and my hypothesis is that the new informality is part of the most advanced forms of contemporary capitalism. It is present in New York, in Paris and Frankfurt, as it is in London. The old informal economy and its survival strategies, that we know so well in Latin America, may look similar, but it is important that we make an analytical distinction between the two, even if the new informal economy also exists in the global south. It exists in Mexico City, in Mumbai and in Buenos Aires, in the intersections of temporalities between the high-power professionals who inhabit the high-tech buildings of corporate centres and the vendors peddling their foods on the streets outside of these buildings.”
“There is a frequent and erroneous belief that one-size-fits-all policies can be applied to the entire informal sector. Something similar happens when we talk about young people. ‘The youth’ do not exist, young people are a sum of very different groups that sometimes are contradictory. The same applies to the informal sector. For those keen on academic conceptualisations I propose three fundamental elements of research. Firstly, to search for the meaning of intermediarismo (that what is mediating) within each group and the articulation between groups. The second thing to look for is leadership – what type of leadership and connections with political groupings are present in different parts of the city? Finally, the habits and customs, and the social practices that they generate. These are the basic elements to look at in any informal group in the city, if we are to generate an analysis able to inform social policy.”
“As an architect and an urbanist, I believe in recognising informality and not being afraid of it, so that it can really be part of our systems of knowledge and representation. But the institutions of architecture and urbanism have perennially forgotten these forms of spatial and economic organisation, and failed to think of the structures and infrastructures, the special conditions that could support them. We must not look at informality only as chaotic, the result of poverty, the unwanted and the unknown. But also recognise that below that façade of poverty there is a very sophisticated, in fact political and social organisation that we need to learn from, open to the kind of unpredictability, ambiguity and creativity that we have ignored. The Mexican diaspora for example continues to transform the very physical nature of the North American city – primarily in California – challenging the rigidity of its incriminatory zoning policies by engendering an interest in flexible, inclusive and temporal urbanism.”
