Selling your side hustle has been a huge theme for Millenials and Gen Z’ers just within the past five to ten years as a way to utilize social media and the internet to its full capacity. Whether its selling art or giving online singing lessons, our generation has found ways to go around the formal economy and make their own, hard-earned money.
So what’s so different about this informal economy, compared to the informal economies of street vendors? Street vendors sell food, cosmetics, auto-services, jewelry, clothes, and other products that fuel the inevitable demands of the neighborhood. Taking a look at vendors in Los Angeles, Bangkok, Thailand, and North Korea exposes the benefits vendors and the community reap, yet at the same time shows that there is much progress to be made in this sector of the city.
Los Angeles, California is a hub of different cultures. The populated region is home to thousands of immigrant families who came to America for opportunity. Yet, ironically, the country systematically does anything but support these dreams. Some immigrants, therefore, have turned to street food vending in their neighborhoods, creating the presence of a huge informal economy. Many people in these areas plus more rely on their neighborhoods’ establishment of an informal economy in order to survive. This is their main and only source of income. As a country founded upon cheap, back-breaking labor, there is a continuous desire to maintain its presence in today’s economy, “but at the same time, [the U.S.] feared actually giving that labor the full rights and privileges of citizenship” as we have seen through the passing of the New Deal, which excluded people of color (CITY RISING 15:57).
In the United States specifically, vendors face threats like arrest every day since the city is against the formation of an informal economy that does not have regulations. So although neighborhoods with prominent street vendors visibly benefit from their presence, cities like Los Angeles have not granted them legal and up to standard. In this way, Los Angeles becomes a divided city and one which does not support one of its most vital populations, or immigrants who are often the fabric of the community feel.
Bangkok, Thailand is another world-renowned hearth of street vendors, specifically street food vendors. The already crowded streets of Bangkok are stacked with small stalls that sell quick snacks like banana crêpes and even full meals, like Jay Fai’s tom yum, which even has a Michelin Star. The street food scene in Thailand is always alive and its “one of the most democratic forms of Thai life” (Street Food, 1:43). Businessmen walking home from work stand in line for dinner with some of the poorest people in the neighborhood. Vendors like Jay Fai have been established for more than thirty years, thus developing strong bonds with the community members. Jay Fai’s is a place of gathering, sharing, and safe space to relax.
However, Thailand as a country is in the process of moving forward to further modernize (or westernize?). Within this process, the government is kicking street food vendors off the street since “they are encroaching on taxpayer’s space” (Street Food, 2:10). Vendors are forced to move back home without a reliant source of income. Yet in Khun Sumeth’s case, after he was forced out of business, his customers kept calling him to find out when he will be selling his delectable hand-pulled egg noodles with barbeque pork again (Street Food, 6:54). Bangkok residents make it very obvious that this informal economy is essential to Thai life, yet decisionmakers refuse to acknowledge this reality. Moving forward, it would be ideal for Bangkok to accommodate the economy already established on its street, yet just enhance the economics, logistics, and safety for vendors.
A final and commonly unknown source of an informal economy lies within the millennial communities of North Korea. The Jangmadang Generation grew up in a financially struggling North Korea, where the government did not have enough money to support its people. Forced into labor camps or left as orphans, the millennial generation realized they could not rely on the government to support them and that they must provide for themselves. As teenagers, these individuals began trading goods across the border to China, such as specialty Korean goods or eventually handmade clothes and unique jewelry.
They found unique ways to make goods and money that would ultimately be sold back to the public in North Korea. The informal economy created by teenagers here was huge; it kept a majority of North Koreans alive. Of course, dictator Kim Jong-un outlawed this form of business, yet the teenagers still found ways around it, even after being held in detention centers or being forced to pay large bribes. The Jangmadang Generation forming a private market in North Korea is one of the most extreme and inspiring examples of a population reliant on an informal economy (The Jangmadang Generation).
The creation of informal economies through street vendors is essential to societies everywhere, in developing and developed nations. They frequently are regarded by government as dirty and dangerous, yet places like Los Angeles, Bangkok, and North Korea have shown how social communities have formed around private markets like these, which end up benefiting the city as a whole. There is a clear disconnect between cities and their informal economies which needs to be addressed in an inclusive, respectful, and thoughtful way as cities continue to develop.
Works Cited
City Rising. Endless Eye Productions, 2017. Film.
The Jangmadang Generation. Directed by C Vickery, and S Park, 2017. Film.
Street Food. Directed by J Favreau, and R Choi, Boardwalk Pictures, 2019. Series.
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