Influence of Urbanization on Street Vending Business in Dar es Salaam and Coast Regions of Tanzania

The overall objective of the paper was to establish the links between urbanization and the types of small business. The study assessed whether various types of street vendors by categories of goods they sold, nature and the number of street vendors had relationship with urbanization. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam and Coast Regions to investigate the nexus between expansion of cities and the changing types of street vending business in Tanzania. Data were collected around bus stops along the Morogoro Road, in ten (10) different localities from Kimara bus stand (15 km) to Mlandizi, which is 65 kilometres from Dar es salaam city centre. A sample of 100 respondents were interviewed, 10 from each centre; and gender considerations was emphasized. Interviews that used semi-structured questionnaires were employed in data collection. Data were processed by using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS); whereby descriptive statistics were computed. Qualitative data were processed manually by applying the content analysis. The findings indicated a positive relationship between mobile street vendors and urbanization as the numbers of mobile street vendors increased with higher levels of urbanization. However, the study unveiled a negative relationship between types of products sold by street vendors and urbanization. Moreover, the study demonstrated dominance of consumer products on street vending selling behaviour. The study recommends that street vendors’ business environment be improved by local government,, central government, and private sector to align their policies and plans in supporting this fast growing informal sector. The needs of formalization of the street vending activities is of great significance too.