Introduction on the Urban Economic Informality Context

This chapter engages in a brief but in-depth discussion and rundown of the key conceptual and theoretical approaches to the understanding of urban informality in Africa in general and South Africa and Zimbabwe specifically. The book adopts a political economy approach, in which urban informality is defined as a variety of economic activity in which many actors converge so as to meet their needs, including inter alia, laying claim to livelihoods, accessing various types of goods and services as well as generating profits. It is posited that attaining all this, is influenced by and it in turn impacts political and socio-economic histories and developments, with implications on among others, spatial and economic planning particularly at city levels.