Six cities of the informal sector—and beyond

Abstract

This article discusses a corpus of scholarship that directly links spatial theorisation, informal sector dynamics and planning practice. Six cities of the informal sector are mapped. While respectful of the many insights gleaned from these cities, the main argument is that we need less theoretically fragmented and more empirically persuasive accounts of the urban informal sector. One possible route to such accounts, it is further suggested, is to begin to chart the geographies of what Bingham and Thrift call the 'full world'.