Claiming the Streets: Property Rights and Legal Empowerment in the Urban Informal Economy

The findings suggest very different trajectories in each city. In Dakar collective action with political support has created space for dialog, while in Dar es Salaam lack of solidarity among traders meant that evictions were uncontested. In both cities the balance between public and private gain was moderated through complex social processes to create the hybrid space of the street, defined here as a 'collective pool resource'. Finally the paper explores bundles of rights that might include access and beneficial use but with collective management to establish such a 'collective pool resource'. Thus the paper challenges the usual conception of the public domain as state land, to recognize the collective claim for the street that is core to the operation of urban informal economies.