I wonder if all the traders who were displaced will survive the re “modernization” I think they would be better off doing it themselves with assistance from the authorities – but this is unlikely to give ht payoffs that these authorities want.
“…the overall good that should come out of this is the need for us to take advantage of an unfortunate situation to bring about modernization,” said Accra City Mayor Alfred Vanderpuye, referring to the recent fire that destroyed the immense Kantamanto Market in the city center on Sunday morning. The market is a center for the trade of secondhand imports from North America, Asia and Europe.
“And the time has come; it’s far long overdue for us to put our market into the modern status that it needs to be, and that I can say that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly is taking full responsibility to bring modernization around these two disaster activities”
On Sunday, May 5, the immense secondhand trading center known as Kantamanto Market was destroyed by a fire that raged for hours. Two days later on Tuesday evening, there was a large, but limited fire at Tudu Market
View original post 56 more words
Urban Choreography 
Thanks for reblogging my post. I agree with your sentiments completely. I’m planning to visit the (now former) Kantamanto market to look at the current dynamics and examine how people are re-organizing/rebuilding/relocating their economic activities. Expecting shifts of vendors to some of other market centers in the city, which is similar to what happens during the demolition exercises. As you can expect, such incidents don’t change people’s options (as in, whether to participate in informal economic activities), but only where. Also looking forward to listening to vendors’ individual reactions to the city’s modernization/market development plans – there is much skepticism overall.
Best,
Victoria