Exclusive Indoor Informal Activities in Africa: Community Economic Development at Grassroots without Land Use Planning?

Abstract

The study examined the economic and environ-spatial activities of exclusive indoor informal sector (EIIS) workers in Africa, citing Lagos as a case study. It randomly sampled 04% of the residential buildings in the study area and showed that nearly al l(91%) the respondents captured in the sample earned about three Dollars per day without any public means of advertisement, and vaded tax (96%). Most of them used open spaces and setbacks within buildings for business activities, creating circulation disturbance within premises (47%) and generating solid and semi-liquid wastes (30%) and air pollution (26%) within residences. There existed positive relationship of 0.502 between customers� level of patronage and profit realised by these respondents, indicating that EIIS attracted high patronage of customers to the sampled residential houses. Implicitly, about half (49%) of the occupants of the sampled houses (inhabited by more than a tenant) would be trading off their privacies to the visiting customers of co-tenants who were into EIIS. The study noted that the environ-spatial and social effects of EIIS activities on residents cannot be traded for the profits made by these workers, hence, advocated for a balance through intervention of land use planners and policy makers.