ABSTRACT
Prescriptions abound about how planning theories and approaches can be modified to benefit street vendors. Instead of focusing on specific prescriptions that are applicable everywhere, this chapter raises questions and discusses issues that might point toward some building blocks of such modifications that can be adapted to different times and contexts. It argues that the hostility of planning theories and approaches to street vendors can be traced to the ideals they espouse, the methods they adopt, and the scale at which they are deployed. While acknowledging the usefulness of abstraction and idealism, the chapter identifies weaknesses in the tendency to focus on generating and pursuing “opposites” to dominant theories, practices and approaches, arguing that energy should be directed at raising unsettling questions to which we might have no answers. The chapter then goes on to suggest some building blocks for the modification of planning theories and approaches. They include questioning the state’s proclivity for order, progress, well-being and betterment; rethinking “dreaming” and the organisation of planning; rethinking development planning; properly theorising development management; redressing the under-theorisation of space and place; dealing with auto-exclusion; and acknowledging and addressing the dangers of “pernicious assimilation”.
