Profiles and Dynamics of the Urban Informal Sector in Indonesia

This book analyses the ways in which the trajectory of development in Indonesia affects the poor who work in the urban informal sector. Situated in the context of Bandung, the third largest city in Indonesia, this book targets street traders, pedagang kakilima, to pursue three areas of inquiry: the economics of the street enterprises; human development of the traders; and coping strategies of the households. The data cover the period of economic crisis, notably between 1997 and 1999. This allows the study to emphasise how the crisis – along with the processes of capitalist industrialisation and urbanisation – affected the activities and lives of street traders and how they coped with the problems they faced.