Explore the Complaint Towards Street Vendors in Manhattan

The informal economy, represented by the street vendors, is not a recent trend. Although there are a lot of advantages of the street vendors, conflicts exist. This research explores the complaints towards street vendors in Manhattan and discusses their distribution and influential factors. Through the analysis, governments and city planners have a general understanding of the conflicts and guideline for the future design and regulation. It mainly uses the quantitative method, by a mix of data, to explore the complaints towards street vendors. This includes the spatial analysis using GIS and the linear regression model. The results show that the more diverse that the land use is, the more conflicts between the street vendors and the city. The larger the income unevenness, the more complaints. And the area with more street connectivity has more complaints towards street vendors. The results reevaluate the mixed land use in urban planning and the current regulation.