Abstract
Like many other African cities, Zimbabwean urban areas have been experiencing the propagation of informality mainly in transport, manufacturing, housing provision and trading. Currently, economic informality has engulfed major Zimbabwean cities thereby reconfiguring the use of urban spaces, particularly in the city centres and, thus, compromising urban resilience to stressors. Acute urban informality has presented favourable conditions for the rapid spread and increase of pandemic outbreaks. Spatial restructuring processes and strategies (including the outcomes) in response to the twin challenges of informality and pandemics for enhanced urban resilience in Bulawayo have not been extensively studied. Despite the sufficient evidence that city resilience as a concept has gained prominence in urban studies, there is little indication that it has prompted a new system of urban planning and management in African cities. In this study, it is argued that urban spatial restructuring of informality, which is part of the whole package of pandemic responses in Bulawayo, will not bear the lasting solution to the urban space contestations and city-centre informality chaos due to the hostile economic and political climate manifesting in many African cities. The impact of the twin challenges of urban informality and health pandemics and their mutual interface, particularly how they have influenced the urban spatial and compositional restructuring towards enhanced spatial resilience in Bulawayo, is investigated. In contributing to the revived research interest in health sciences and urban studies, the social constructivist philosophy blends well with the pragmatist philosophy. The mix of the two philosophies helps in the analysis of the research matter that is context-bound and premised on the guiding principles of social constructivist philosophy and at the same time it contributes towards the discussion of the largely problem-oriented and actionable knowledge about spatial resilience as prescribed by the pragmatist research philosophy. For purposes of enhanced, intensive, multi-faceted, and comprehensive in-depth study of a complex problem like spatial restructuring processes in the context of the challenge of health pandemics and informality, the case study research design was used and was complemented by case-within-a-case research design. This design blend enabled the structural analysis of the sub-case studies drawn from the main case study in investigating spatial changes, stakeholder roles and compositional and functional adjustments in Bulawayo. A mixed-method approach was used in qualitative, quantitative and spatial data gathering. Locational data using 160 geographical positioning of planned informal trading sites that have a total of 15098 trading bays that are 2.5m2 in size and 24 shopping centres which have been designated as informal trading points in Bulawayo were gathered. Maps showing the distribution of the georeferenced planned informal trading sites were created. Longitudinal and cross-sectional data about pandemics, informality and spatial response strategies were gathered from online and archival sources. 205 questionnaires were administered to informal sector traders in Bulawayo. 20
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key informant interviews were conducted with professionals, informal traders’ representatives, relevant and involved Bulawayo municipality officers, Bulawayo residents’ representatives, active civic society organisations, and enforcement personnel to generate qualitative data about processes around pandemics and informality. Spatial data were analysed using ArcGIS whereas qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using Excel and SPSS to reveal the spatial changes resulting from pandemics and informality processes and responses by Bulawayo city council. It was found that Bulawayo’s spatial restructuring policy and panacea to the seemingly permanent and soaring urban informality hinge on decongesting the city centre. The determination and commitment by Bulawayo municipality to decentralise the informal sector trading sites has been triggered by the scourge of COVID-19 pandemic impact which peaked from mid-2020 to mid-2021 in Zimbabwe. Despite its devastating impact, the health pandemic outbreak presented an opportunity for Bulawayo to rethink and restructure its spatial character by utilising the temporary closure of the city centre due to the national lockdown. Despite the amendment of the Hawkers and Vendors By-laws in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the urban informal sector, the current planning policy and legislative framework used by Bulawayo municipality has not significantly deviated from the settler regime’s planning framing despite the contextual changes. The adaptation and contextualization of the town planning system to embrace new concepts such as urban resilience and to suit the changing political, environmental, economic and social set-ups is very slow in Zimbabwe. Even though, pandemic-informality-nexus-induced compositional changes have seen the participation of various committees, associations, organisations, and central government ministries partaking in roles and responsibilities such as policy and regulations crafting, programme implementation, advocacy and enforcement in the attempt to address the impact of urban informality. The active stance taken by Bulawayo municipality in curbing the impact of pandemics and informality portrays the city as placed at the forefront in battling out world calamities. A paradigm shift within the new urban agenda that involves tapping from the opportunities presented by the information cities and the quest to build and strengthen urban resilience can contribute immensely to tackling the pressing present-day urban challenges. Research focusing on how urban informality can be leveraged as a source of innovation and adaptation through tapping from the opportunities of the smart city movement and the digital transformation to transform city informality, is needed. Based on the study conclusions, this thesis advances the Responsive Urbanism Framework for Resilience. The framework provides a lens for deep analysis of endemic and complex urban problems such as pandemics and informality. In influencing effective urban management practice, the proposed framework brings the intelligent city movement to the realm of disaster management by recommending the careful application of systems thinking in responding to urban problems of a global pandemic magnitude. Conceptually, the
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proposed framework is inspired by systems theory which is grounded on the principle of interdependent relationships of parts and other systems.
Key words: Pandemics, Spatial Planning, Economic Informality, Resilience