| Author | Nguyen Thi Bae Thai |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.UE-99-07 |
| Subject(s) | Urban ecology--Thailand--Yala
|
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of
Science |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | This research focuses on the food vendors as a typical case of the informal sector in Y ala
Municipality, Thailand. The food vendors are impo1iant, but they also pose challenges to
urban planning and environmental management. Often this leads to negative attitude to such
economic activities of the poor in cities of developing countries. This study seeks to contribute
to city administrators' adoption of policies to enable and accommodate food vendors as part of
an urban economy and environment. To this end, a good understanding of food vendors'
personal and their activities' locational characteristics is essential. This is particularly
important since urban environmental management requires local level actions involving the
people and their economic activities.
With this in view, this study focuses on investigating the personal, locational and operational
characteristics of food vendors and their activities. The study seeks to contribute to developing
appropriate policies and strategies by the local authorities for enviromnental management at
the local level. In this instance it being the worksite of food vending. The locational and
operational characteristics of the food vendors are investigated in order to know how the
vendors operate their businesses from their vending locations and accessibility implications of
basic services in such locations.
The socio-economic status is briefly reviewed to understand who they are and what are their
attitudes in getting involved to improve their worksite. Customers' characteristics are also
studied for knowing who are the typical customers and what kind of locational policies will
ensure avoidance of customer and business loss to the vendors.
The central thrust of the study, however, has been on identification of local environmental
problems caused by the food vending activities. Findings of this study, conducted on food
vending activity at Siroros in Yala Municipality, show that solid waste disposal, blockage of
sewer flow, space occupation, slowing down traffic flow and selling of unsanitary food are
some of the key problems. On-pavement shops create more environmental problems than their
in-house counterparts.
Based on some exploration of the root causes of these problems and constraints to solve them,
this study proposes three sets of strategies (sh01i term, long term and empowerment strategies)
to solve the identified problems. The short-term strategy focuses on clearing blockage of
sewer flow, improving solid waste disposal and unsanitary food problems. For the long-term
strategy, two alternatives are proposed. One alternative is to shift the existing on-pavement
vendors into in-house shops and the other is to relocate them to a new site. An empowerment
strategy is also presented and can be applied individually or in parallel with other strategies.
The strategy gives rights to the Muslim community to control and monitor the vendors and
their environmental issues. |
| Year | 2000 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Urban Environmental and Management (UE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Amin, A.T.M. Nurul |
| Examination Committee(s) | Jamieson, Walter;Zimmermann, Willi;Gengaje, Rajan |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC);Canadian Universities Cons01iium (CUC) |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2000 |