Informal Commerce: Expansion and Exclusion in the Historic Centre of the Latin American City

By Rosemary D. F. Bromley on December 16, 2002

Informal commerce, characterized by market and street trading
activities, thrives in the central areas of many Latin American cities.
Focusing on the neglected spatial dimension of informal commerce, the
paper traces its considerable expansion in the historic centre of Quito
in Ecuador since the early 1970s and examines the issues which have
prompted municipal intervention. An early municipal response involves
some attempts at redistribution of informal commerce, justified by
essentially functional issues such as hygiene and congestion. However,
the introduction of conservation policy and the way this policy evolved
to embrace a broad concern for the urban environment is associated with
the emergence of an aesthetic/cultural discourse in attitudes towards
informal commerce. The authorities are increasingly motivated towards
‘selling’ a new image of the historic centre and encouraging new
economies oriented towards the tourist and a relatively wealthy
clientele. Moves to exclude informal commerce have concentrated on the
most visible spaces, particularly those of the principal squares.
Although informal trade hidden from view continues to thrive, only time
and further research will show whether the re-presentation of the
historic centre and the promotion of new economies will finally effect
the exclusion of informal commerce as a culmination of long-term efforts
to control its occupation of space.

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