The City of Johannesburg has invested heavily in the formalisation of street trading within the inner city. They have supplied traders with stalls from which to work and, through rental and permit schemes, have secured their tenure, thus largely freeing them from police harassment. Counter to the formalised street traders, who are mostly South African women, are ‘illegal’ traders, the majority of whom are young, male and foreign, who operate within the same areas but without secure tenure or permanent stands, and as a result, face constant police harassment. This study builds on reports by Mitullah (2003) and Tissington (2009), which described clear distinctions between legal and illegal street traders in the ways that they operate and use space, and also identified tensions between the two groups. We highlight some of the same themes but then look at how legal status affects traders’ profitability and the tactics that some use to compensate for their lack of legality and to generate profit. We present a brief description of the evolution of street trading policy in order to provide a context for informal traders in contemporary Johannesburg. We then refer to the findings of an exploratory study conducted in 2010 on street traders selling vegetables and fruits along Noord Street in inner-city Johannesburg, to demonstrate the intersections between legality, spatial and social practice as well as the tensions that have risen as a result of the current policy and by-laws.

A brief background on street trading

The history of informal-sector policy in South Africa reflects a profound ambivalence towards informality, alternating between reformist notions of street trading that view this sector as a viable alternative for people to make a living, and modernist planning that regards street trading as unacceptable within ‘modern’ cities (Bantubonse 2008). The apartheid state initially took a zero tolerance approach to street trading but by the 1970s it was apparent that management and control were more realistic options. Under the Licensing and Business Hours Ordinance 11 of 1973, traders were allowed to operate in certain areas and at certain times provided that they paid a levy to the city council (Karumbidza 2011). During the 1980s many of the regulations of the apartheid state fell away, either intentionally or through a loss of control, resulting in a massive growth of the informal sector.