The Existence of Street Vendors as An Element of Urban Space: A Dilemma

Abstract

The existence of street vendors has always been part of the growth of cities throughout the hemisphere, mainly in developing countries. Poverty is the major driver of their growing existence. This research aims to comprehend the issues of the street vendors in the context of urban space, through the perspectives of researchers from various expertise backgrounds who conducted their research at various cities around the world. This paper was prepared as a result of review to 50 (fifty) literature sources, mostly in the form of international scientific journal articles. The review is carried out by initially classifying the literature into groups according to the researcher's area of expertise and research location. The result of the review shows that research on this topic commonly evoked by two kinds of interest. The first interest is to reveal problems that experience by the street vendors in urban space, while the second interest is to reveal the problems generated by the existence of street vendors in urban space. Both kinds of interest are representing the persistent dilemma about the existence of street vendors in urban spaces.