**6. Urban planning and informal economy in global South**

Urban planning in the global South is established as founded and inherited from the global North [6, 43, 44]. The global South surely appreciates this offer, however, instead of moving ahead to re-examine what has been received and practiced for decades based on current urban realities, many global South cities' planners have stuck to the traditional planning system, which Watson ([6], p. 2262) has aptly captured as *dinosaur* in contemporary era. The dogmatic attitude of global South planners in the midst of glaring current urban realities is very much exemplified in planners' reaction to the informal economy which is obviously the ONLY available alternative for many urban residents based on the dwindling formal economy.

One of the descriptions of informality in Duminy ([45], p. 1) as *a range of behaviours and practices* **unfolding** *within cities* has been very much overtaken as many researchers have realized that informality and precisely informal economic

**43**

*Future Planning of Global South Cities with Inclusive Informal Economic Growth in Perspective*

ventures have come to stay [46]; a fact that many planners in global South cities have refused to accept [43]. The stance of urban planners in relation to informal economy in the global South is mainly of three categories; suppression (which is the most common), compassionate disregard [47, 48] and the recently growing positive responses [26]. Earlier descriptions of informal economy as illegal activities no longer holds in many instances as some governments in the global South have realized the role of informal economy and started having a rethink, however many have adopted alternative terms for it such as small-scale enterprises, entrepreneurs, etc., probably to suit some class of the society. The indispensability of informal economy in the global South is not debatable as many governments do not have any tenable alternative formal employment for the growing unemployed in the cities. The realization of this fact has actually motivated the inclusion of entrepreneurship as a compulsory course in some institutions. Apart from the internal forces that are driving informal economy in the global South, there are external forces; economic globalization, neoliberal urban policy responses coupled with the 2008 global economic/financial crisis [46]. These turn of events re- iterate that informal economy (then traditional sector) is not a phenomenon that is about to fade off soon as earlier speculated by Lewis [49] rather it has not only come to stay in many global South cities, it has actually become the convention rather than the exception. Despite these obvious relevance and permanence of informal economy, many urban planners are yet to view it from a positive perspective resulting in constant conflict between urban planners and informal economy operators. The non-acknowledgement of the role of informal economy operators has also caused planners not to key-into contemporary trends of maximizing the potentials of this group in some global South cities. Urban planners have been alleged to use the very planning instruments in their custody like the master plan and zoning as instruments to dispossess the urban poor among the informal economy operators of their property and source of livelihood many times without compensation or alternative livelihoods. This is particularly peculiar to Nigerian cities. Some governments in the global South are argued to be promoting informal activities by their policies and yet penalize the urban residents caught-up by these policies [50]. However, it's not all negative attitudes, Onodugo et al. ([26], p. 97) has some of the success stories on positive attitudes of planners/government towards informal economy while Yuen

**7. The need for adjustment in global south urban planning standards to** 

The dogmatic stance of many urban planners in global South cities has aggravated the challenges of many urban areas. Instead of working towards solving the problems, they are concerned with ensuring 'ordered' cities at the expense of livelihood, economic growth and accomplishment of many other sustainable development goals. However, Watson [6] has described the reason for the ineffectiveness of global South planners as a complex issue which in some cases lies beyond the powers and will of the planners and linked to some local political ideologies and beyond, to the international policies. One of the tools of traditional urban planning is the master plan, a very powerful tool that has been used by planners to affect the urban rich and the poor in different ways. For the rich, it's a tool that helps them to maintain their properties at strategic locations of the city while the urban poor have been marginalized using the master plan. The master plan of earlier years concentrated on physical development without much consideration of other aspects of life like economic and

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89145*

[44] tells the success story of Singapore.

**meet current realities**

#### *Future Planning of Global South Cities with Inclusive Informal Economic Growth in Perspective DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89145*

ventures have come to stay [46]; a fact that many planners in global South cities have refused to accept [43]. The stance of urban planners in relation to informal economy in the global South is mainly of three categories; suppression (which is the most common), compassionate disregard [47, 48] and the recently growing positive responses [26]. Earlier descriptions of informal economy as illegal activities no longer holds in many instances as some governments in the global South have realized the role of informal economy and started having a rethink, however many have adopted alternative terms for it such as small-scale enterprises, entrepreneurs, etc., probably to suit some class of the society. The indispensability of informal economy in the global South is not debatable as many governments do not have any tenable alternative formal employment for the growing unemployed in the cities. The realization of this fact has actually motivated the inclusion of entrepreneurship as a compulsory course in some institutions. Apart from the internal forces that are driving informal economy in the global South, there are external forces; economic globalization, neoliberal urban policy responses coupled with the 2008 global economic/financial crisis [46]. These turn of events re- iterate that informal economy (then traditional sector) is not a phenomenon that is about to fade off soon as earlier speculated by Lewis [49] rather it has not only come to stay in many global South cities, it has actually become the convention rather than the exception.

Despite these obvious relevance and permanence of informal economy, many urban planners are yet to view it from a positive perspective resulting in constant conflict between urban planners and informal economy operators. The non-acknowledgement of the role of informal economy operators has also caused planners not to key-into contemporary trends of maximizing the potentials of this group in some global South cities. Urban planners have been alleged to use the very planning instruments in their custody like the master plan and zoning as instruments to dispossess the urban poor among the informal economy operators of their property and source of livelihood many times without compensation or alternative livelihoods. This is particularly peculiar to Nigerian cities. Some governments in the global South are argued to be promoting informal activities by their policies and yet penalize the urban residents caught-up by these policies [50]. However, it's not all negative attitudes, Onodugo et al. ([26], p. 97) has some of the success stories on positive attitudes of planners/government towards informal economy while Yuen [44] tells the success story of Singapore.
