‘Working in Warwick’ is the title of a new book that’s just been launched; with the question on everybody’s mind: Is Warwick working?

Written by Richard Dobson and Caroline Skinner with Jillian Nicholson, ‘Working in Warwick’ was launched on the evening of Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at the Durban Art Gallery in Anton Lembede (Smith Street). Acclaimed photographer Dennis Gilbert’s selection of photographs which were commissioned for the book were also on exhibit at the launch.

The book and exhibition launch was opened by Khabelzele Mkhize, trader leader in Warwick and chair of ASIYA ETAFULENI and Professor Keith Hart, the anthropologist who coined the phrase ‘informal sector’.

This book has arrived at just the right time - when the City Council and workers of Warwick are in the thick of a dispute about replacing the 99-year-old protected heritage site with a multi-million rand shopping mall ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

‘Working in Warwick’ offers a fresh look at street traders’ lives, the role they play in city life and their contribution to its economy. The text and photographs in this book reveal that it is possible to include street trading in urban plans in a way that adds to the vibrancy and attraction of cities. This is not a common perception of street trading or of urban planning, which makes this book all the more significant.

Warwick is a vibrant street trading area situated in a transport hub in South Africa’s east coast city of Durban. This is the context for the book: it is where a small dedicated team of local authority officials, street traders and their leaders worked for more than a decade tackling what seemed insurmountable urban management and design challenges. The account of the transformation of Warwick presented in the book was originally intended to inspire other local authorities and planners as they deal with the challenges and opportunities presented by the informal economy. But with the heritage site currently under threat, ‘Working in Warwick’ is now hoped to inspire a rethink of the plans for the very area that it celebrates.

The authors of ‘Working in Warwick’ have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the fields of development studies, urban planning and the informal economy, having researched and worked with non governmental organisations (NGOs) on a variety of such projects.

Richard Dobson, an architect by training, worked for over ten years for the eThekwini Municipality as project leader, first of the Warwick Junction Urban Renewal Project and then for the inner city renewal programme. He left the city in 2006 to establish ASIYA ETAFULENI (Zulu for ‘let us negotiate’) – an NGO offering design and facilitation services to the informal economy. His professional technical, design and project work has been recognised through various national and international awards and citations.

Caroline Skinner is a researcher at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. For over a decade, Skinner’s work has interrogated the nature of the informal economy with a view to informing more appropriate policy responses. She has published widely on the subject and has been involved in policy and advocacy work at a local, provincial, national and international level. Much of her work has been done under the auspices of the global research-policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising or WIEGO. She has recently been appointed director of WIEGO’s international urban policies programme.

Jillian Nicholson is the writer and editor of many accessible books based on the in-depth research, documentation and experience of those engaged in a particular field of expertise. She has written for the eThekwini Municipality as well as provincial and national government, the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, for WIEGO and other NGOs. Her books include three others on informal economy issues.