{"id":5723,"date":"2011-04-21T12:58:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T16:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=5723"},"modified":"2011-04-21T12:58:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T16:58:06","slug":"food-sampler-the-struggle-to-eat-on-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/04\/21\/food-sampler-the-struggle-to-eat-on-the-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Food sampler: the struggle to eat on the street"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Street food in Bangkok<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor’s note: The City of Ottawa’s restrictive street food regulations have come under
\nscrutiny this week, with a popular online petition<\/a> calling for their review garnering hundreds of signatures. But street vending is not just as consumer choice issue, it is a public space concern; exploring that, the Inclusive Cities blog<\/a> recently posted this news roundup on how street vending is dealt with in cities around the world; it is cross-posted here with their permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

_________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

Global news headlines about street vending are showing a stark contrast in the way cities are addressing consumer demand for the goods and services street vendors provide. On one side, the city government of Accra, Ghana implemented a total ban<\/a> on street vending at any location in the city not designated as a hawking zone, enforced through fines, arrests and imprisonment. Meanwhile, in Canada, one city (Montreal) is considering a reversal on its long-time ban<\/a> on street vendors, and in another city (Vancouver), local university students teamed with the tech industry to develop an iPhone app that will generate more demand for street vendors<\/a> by delivering directions, menus and information about street food carts to consumers.<\/p>\n

The Canadian news reflects a recent street food craze that has gripped North American cities, linking hungry lunch-hour foodies hoping to avoid the same old sit-down restaurants with entrepreneurial chefs seeking to generate a loyal following for creative culinary experiments delivered by trucks and mobile food carts. This craze has elevated age-old arguments about street vendors\u2019 use of public space, and about competition between street vendors and off-street establishments \u2013 competition viewed as unfair by the brick-and-mortar types, and perfectly fair to street vendors and economic libertarians<\/a> \u2013 in public discourse. It has also demonstrated how much city-dwellers rely on, and enthusiastically support, convenient, open-air options for fulfilling their most basic need, to eat.<\/p>\n

The Ghanaian news, by contrast, reflects the age-old problem of traffic congestion in poorly planned cities with few formal job opportunities. Accra\u2019s mayor is not the first to announce that street vending will soon \u201cbe a thing of the past\u201d in a city, and he will not be the last to discover that banning street trade doesn\u2019t make it go away. The reality is that street vendors and off-street merchants both provide services that are valued by consumers and that are good for cities. As Yale Law Professor Muneer Ahmad reported after a mission in India<\/a>, trying to prohibit street vending in places where it naturally occurs is a \u201crecipe for failure\u201d because there is an actual demand for the goods and services that vendors sell. That\u2019s why India\u2019s National Policy on Urban Street Vendors<\/a> calls on cities to accommodate street vendors in natural market areas, and why Durban\u2019s Warwick Junction<\/a> is viewed as an international success story. The question is how to incorporate street vendors into the planning process, and how to make plans for street trade sustainable over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: The City of Ottawa’s restrictive street food regulations have come under scrutiny this week, with a popular online petition calling for their review garnering hundreds of signatures. But street vending is not just as consumer choice issue, it is a public space concern; exploring that, the Inclusive Cities blog recently posted this newsContinue reading “Food sampler: the struggle to eat on the street”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7089,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[3333,1880,687,3332,5386,1437,3326,2709,1505,1387,1109,3327,729,3334,3330,372,394,2898,3331,3329,3328,3336,3335,501,812],"class_list":["post-5723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","tag-accra","tag-bangkok","tag-canada","tag-durban","tag-editor","tag-food-2","tag-food-sampler","tag-ghana","tag-india","tag-iphone","tag-mayor","tag-mobile-food-carts","tag-montreal","tag-muneer-ahmad","tag-online-petition-calling","tag-other-cities","tag-ottawa","tag-professor","tag-recent-street-food-craze","tag-restrictive-street-food-regulations","tag-street-food-carts","tag-the-canadian-news","tag-the-ghanaian-news","tag-vancouver","tag-yale"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFood sampler: the struggle to eat on the street - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/04\/21\/food-sampler-the-struggle-to-eat-on-the-street\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Food sampler: the struggle to eat on the street - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Editor’s note: The City of Ottawa’s restrictive street food regulations have come under scrutiny this week, with a popular online petition calling for their review garnering hundreds of signatures. 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