"Leave us alone": 'right to the city' of street vendors along Main North 1 Road, Maseru, Lesotho.

This article explores the lived daily experiences of street vendors operating along the Main North 1 Road in the CBD of Maseru, Lesotho. This exploration considers how street vendors access and negotiate a claim for the right to the street. The challenges confronting these vendors in their daily hustling, including COVID-19 restrictions, are also examined. A narrative inquiry research design informs this article with data collected from interviews with purposively selected street vendors from Maseru. This primary data was triangulated with document analysis to increase the validity of the findings. The findings highlight strategies employed by vendors in Maseru that include integrating with the formal enterprises, diversifying their trades, resisting and frustrating certain decisions by the local authorities, and contributing to urban blight. A framework for interrogating and understanding street vending and its nuances is postulated based on the findings from Maseru. The article strongly appeals to the authorities to find more benign ways of integrating street vending into the production of cities.

Stretching resilience and adaptive transport systems capacity in South Africa: Imperfect or perfect attempts at closing COVID -19 policy and planning emergent gaps.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new wave of health, infrastructure and built environment challenges and opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic induced environment presents a divide between the "new and old normal" with policy and planning implications for health, transport and general socio-economic growth and development. Multiple and complex nuanced transport matters cascade all geographic scales and pervade all sectors of the economy. The extent to which existing transport systems capacities are resilient, adaptive, and optimized for complete disaster planning, management and sustainability is questioned. This paper critically reviews how the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the resilience and adaptive transport systems capacities in South Africa. A critical question interrogated is whether on-going policy and planning interventions constitute imperfect or perfect attempts at closing COVID -19 policy and planning emergent gaps. The paper makes use of South Africa as a case study, referencing the Disaster Management Act (No. 57 of 2002) and logical Disaster Management Act: Regulations relating to COVID-19 (Government Notice 318 of 2020), with specific reference to the transport sector lockdown regulations in unravelling policy and planning implications. Drawing from the complex systems adaptive theory (CSAT), sustainability theory (ST), innovation theory (IT), transitions theory (TT), thematic COVID -19 transport planning and policy adaptation, mitigation measures in the South African transportation sector are discussed. Emergent lessons with respect to developing and advancing a new generation of resilient, adaptive, and optimized transport proof infrastructure and services including revising transport and related policies that navigates through various waves and cycles of induced pandemic and shocks is suggested.

Exploring linkages between transport and disaster risk reduction in South Africa: A review of literature.

Transport systems, network densities, design capacities and constraints (including levels of service expressed in terms of quantity and quality) are central to disaster risk logistics, mitigation and adaptation. Using a desktop literature review method, this study analysed headline disaster risk issues in the transport sector of South Africa. The analysis indicated that implementation gaps exist in terms of the operating policy, institutional and legislative framework. The gaps were located at different spheres of government and expressed themselves at different scales. The end result of the disjuncture was a compromised disaster risk reduction service delivery environment. Although existing platforms constitute a good starting point for tackling disaster risk in the transport sector, the article argues that this is not enough. A transport and disaster risk reduction atlas and implementation roadmap are advanced as one way of contributing towards a better transport and risk reduction agenda in South Africa.

Rural transport and climate change in South Africa: Converting constraints into rural transport adaptation opportunities.

This study explored the implications of climate change for rural transport in South Africa. The article was seeking to convert existing rural transport adaptation constraints into rural transport adaptation opportunities. Challenges and constraints to rural transport adaptation transitions were also explored. The research methodology adopted was a review of the literature and references to case study examples. Then a four-stage multi-analytical approach was used to unravel and decode the major rural transport and climate change issues in South Africa. Consequent to the analysis, a framework of analysis for strongly integrating climate change to rural transport interventions was advanced. The findings indicated the existing rural transport adaptation measures and options in South Africa. The article concludes by highlighting the complexity and intricate dynamic nature of interactions, networks and systems that impact rural South Africa. Recommendations revolve around properly situating rural transport and climate change within the wider rural development challenges and matters facing contemporary South Africa.