The Panamerican strip: informal commerce and instant urbanism in Latin-American economies

The notion of informal economy is often associated with developing countries, where up to half of the labour force works in an alternative way. Nevertheless, with the rapid transformation of post-Fordist modes of production in emerging economies, many workers are displaced from formal into informal employment. This trend is broadly a common condition in all kind of economical systems; also in developed ones such as the UK, USA or Spain but in smaller proportions. Informal economies constitute a dynamic process, which includes many aspects of economic and social theory including exchange, regulation, and enforcement. By its intermittent nature, spatial regulations change frequently, sometimes hourly, daily or seasonally. Any instance of economic activity can shift between categories of formal and informal with even minor changes in policy. This type of ‘Instant Urbanity’ constructs new urban patterns –transitory, elusive or spontaneous- which flee from any conventional spatial planning. If something can unquestionably characterised any emerging urban economies and, of course, Latin America is its every-day informal system of trade, which is outside state controlled or money-based transactions. It includes barters of goods and services, mutual self-help, unclassified jobs, street and highway vending, and others manifestations. What is the physical impact of these temporal activities in existing urban tissue? How do they mutate? Which types of spatial configurations generate in urban fabrics? Is this type of ‘‘Instant Urbanity’ a key factor in the development of cities in the Americas? How can we deal with these new types of transformable architectures and uses? This study will critically analyse and compare the contemporary urban phenomenon of informal economies along main transport network -the Pan-American Highway- in Santiago de Chile by analysing three distinctive informal commerce spaces: A. Macro-commerce: Food fairs, flea markets, etc. and B. Micro-commerce: Street vendors and push-carts in the strip