Michal Lyons

Bio: Michal Lyons is an academic researcher from London South Bank University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Informal sector & Gentrification. The author has an hindex of 18, co-authored 36 publications receiving 1388 citations. Previous affiliations of Michal Lyons include Sun Yat-sen University.

Participation, Empowerment and Sustainability: (How) Do the Links Work?:

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between participation, empowerment and sustainability. Using the multisectoral and multicontextual experience of participation amassed in South Africa, both pre- and post-apartheid , we address two questions: does participation lead to empowerment; and does empowerment, in turn, lead to sustainability? Further, what external factors mediate and influence that relationship? Analysis shows that a relationship does exist and is contingent on a number of contextual factors, crucial to its success. Findings are discussed in terms of the international literature on community participation and local democracy, and policy implications are identified.

Street Traders and the Emerging Spaces for Urban Voice and Citizenship in African Cities

Abstract: As informal commerce has grown to become the lifeblood of African cities, street trade—among the largest sub-groups in the informal economy—has become a visible but contested domain. Yet the increase in street traders has not been accompanied by a corresponding improvement in their status as citizens or in their political influence. The paper first discusses the implications of theoretical debates on ‘citizenship’ and ‘voice’ for street traders and then explores characteristics of traders’ associations and influence in four case study countries: Senegal, Ghana, Tanzania and Lesotho. Drawing together the authors’ findings from research between 2001 and 2008, the paper identifies a fluidity of both formal and informal traders’ organisations which fail to achieve lasting impact. Finally, the paper discusses urban policy implications, arguing for a more flexible definition of urban citizenship based on rights and responsibilities, and an understanding of the complexity of grassroots associations of the marginalised poor.

Creating Urban Social Capital: Some Evidence from Informal Traders in Nairobi:

Abstract: The poverty and dramatic alteration in geographical composition of African cities have been associated with rapid urbanisation, the growth of the informal economy and migration. The latter has sepa...

Sustainable Urban Livelihoods and Marketplace Social Capital: Crisis and Strategy in Petty Trade:

Abstract: Urban growth has been accompanied by the development of bimodal labour markets and increasing inequalities in both North and South. In Southern cities, many of the poor have turned to the informal sector, in particular to street trade. This has resulted in a multiplicity of urban conflicts and has led to pressure on urban managers to undertake formalisation, for which an increasingly developmental approach has been advocated. Nevertheless, for traders, the formalisation of street trade has very uneven outcomes. The starting-point for this article is the premise that not enough is known about the social fabric upon which trading careers depend. Adopting sustainable livelihoods as a conceptual framework and drawing on social capital theory, four questions are addressed. How do trading careers survive over time? Are there differences in the survival strategies for which social capital is employed among traders operating in different political, cultural and socioeconomic contexts? In the new processes of urba...

Gentrification and Social Mixing: Towards an Inclusive Urban Renaissance?

Abstract: Nearly 30 years ago now, Holcomb and Beauregard were critical of the way that it was assumed that the benefi ts of gentrifi cation would ‘trickle down’ to the lower classes in a manner similar to that hypothesised in the housing market. Nevertheless, despite fi erce academic debate about whether or not gentrifi cation leads to displacement, segregation and social polarisation, it is increasingly promoted in policy circles both in Europe and North America on the assumption that it will lead to less segregated and more sustainable communities. Yet there is a poor evidence base for this policy of ‘positive gentrifi cation’—for, as the gentrifi cation literature tells us, despite the new middle classes’ desire for diversity and difference they tend to self-segregate and, far from being tolerant, gentrifi cation is part of an aggressive, revanchist ideology designed to retake the inner city for the middle classes. In light of this, it is argued that these new policies of social mixing require critical attention with regard to their ability to produce an inclusive urban renaissance and the potentially detrimental gentrifying effects they may infl ict on the communities they intend to help.

New-build 'gentrification' and London's riverside renaissance

Abstract: In a recent conference paper Lambert and Boddy (2002) questioned whether new-build residential developments in UK city centres were examples of gentrification. They concluded that this stretched th...

Collective culture and urban public space

Abstract: This paper develops a post‐humanist account of urban public space. It breaks with a long tradition that has located the culture and politics of public spaces such as streets and parks or libraries and town halls in the quality of inter‐personal relations in such spaces. Instead, it argues that human dynamics in public space are centrally influenced by the entanglement and circulation of human and non‐human bodies and matter in general, productive of a material culture that forms a kind of pre‐cognitive template for civic and political behaviour. The paper explores the idea of ‘situated surplus’, manifest in varying dimensions of compliance, as the force that produces a distinctive sense of urban collective culture and civic affirmation in urban life.