Warwick Junction, the informal trading area in central Durban, is abuzz with activity. From one stall to the other the goods on display range from foodstuffs to cosmetics and clothing. Colourful curios invite admiration and different herbs are laid out on the ground to dry in the sun.
Maskanda music playing on portable radio-cassette players and occasionally dance groups provide entertainment for customers and passers-by.
Warwick Junction is a vibrant setting where informal trading is managed. The area includes almost half of Durban’s central business district, including the Grey Street area, Berea railway station and the fresh produce market.
Warwick Junction is the main gateway to the city and more than 460 000 commuters pass through it every day. This burgeoning economic hub rakes in about R1-billion a year — nearly matching the turnover of the upmarket Pavilion mall.
The area is shedding its air of urban decay and is now increasingly clean and safe. This earned the Junction a best international practice award in last year’s United Nations Report on Urban Development and inclusion in the Lonely Planet Guide tourist handbook.
This case study of urban rejuvenation is a product of the efforts of several personalities and organisations, including the Durban municipality.
”Durban has much to be proud of,” says Pat Horn, international coordinator of Streetnet, a role player in the Cinderella scenario. Streetnet was formed in 1995 to protect and promote the rights of street vendors in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
”During the past 18 months working with street vendors, the unicity and groups like the Self Employed Women’s Union, we have developed a unique approach to informal traders that recognises their significant economic contribution to the city of Durban,” says Horn.
Warwick Junction’s potential was highlighted in groundbreaking research on the informal economy in South African cities conducted by the University of Natal’s Caroline Skinner in 1998/99.
”The Durban municipality used this research to initiate a policy to deal with the informal economy in contrast to the ad hoc response prevalent in the past. The old abolitionist approach to street vendors, where they were not really wanted and were regarded as illegal, was not working.
”Streetnet promotes an approach where urban planning takes account of the street vendors’ contribution to the economy; where a clear policy regulates the relationship between all the role players and reduces the opportunity for harassment, corruption and political favour.”
Richard Dobson, district leader of the Warwick Junction Urban Renewal Project, agrees. ”The city realised that a policy needed to be developed to manage it cooperatively. This led to Durban’s street traders being given a much greater priority than in the past, not simply from a standpoint of enforcing municipal by-laws.”
Durban’s council hopes its urban renewal plan will attract investment by improving trading conditions for vendors, shops and commuters and by expanding public transport, health and other services. Other facilities include a crèche for traders’ children and temporary accommodation for traders and out-of-town shoppers.
Dobson says 25 000 people are directly dependent on Warwick Junction, where about 7 000 traders operate.
”The first phase involved the relocation of the herb traders. We negotiated the use of a prime piece of real estate that was just sitting in the air. It was part of a freeway network that was not incorporated into the traffic grid of a new road system. The council spent R3-million upgrading the area and providing the infrastructure to create a herb traders’ market along the unused flyover.
Turnover reached R170-million in the first year.
”Suddenly it was apparent that there were real benefits to this approach and that it was viable to embark on capital development in other areas of informal trade,” said Dobson. ”While it’s hard to make an exact count of the herb traders, who number between 500 and 700, these people are responsible for sustaining some 14 000 jobs outside the market.”
Dobson says the relocation of the herbalists had positive spin-offs with a green approach to development. The project’s emphasis swung from marketing to sustaining the market because of the potential degradation of environmental resources. For example, groups like the Wildlife Society had noted how much bark was stripped from trees in the city environs.
”The city established an artificial propagation centre to sustain the supplies of herbs to the traders. By providing a secondary, complementary business that directs people into growing supplies for the traders, the economic sphere has widened.”
Research by the natural resources department at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, revealed that a particular bark, which was a commonly used ingredient, could be substituted with leaves, and herbalists are now harvesting leaves from specially grown young trees.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project is that the management of the 7 000 informal traders has become self-regulating and sustainable over the past five years.
”The traders themselves have realised that the street has reached its capacity. They are now in position to regulate their own operation.
”The renewal plan will shift its attention to another district,” says Dobson. ”What we have tried to do is to regenerate the city by assimilating its peoples in a new configuration — to celebrate Durban’s identity as a truly African city.
”If this city is going to be part of a transformation, it’s in its public spaces that this will happen.”