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The urbanization process that develops in parallel with the increase in population, get volume in vertical level on the ground today just like the underground expansion of urban spaces in antique ages, in parallel with the intensification of spatial expansion, leading to new problems and research questions in urban spaces. Because the increase in the number of people per square meter as a result of vertical concentration on the ground makes the streets or the land we step on become a more rentable market. While this market has been filled with classical artisan businesses so far, street economy actors serve the population (consumer) where artisans are not sufficient for meeting the demand in highly populated streets. This situation confronted law enforcement and street sellers in cities for decades or may be centuries, and urban peace and harmony often deteriorated. In the integrated urban areas, in addition to a series of urban problems, the registration of the informal economy and the adaptation of the street economy actors to the urban identity and esthetics have become the problems that await priority solutions. Street economy is an aesthetic and ergonomic fact of living cities, in accordance with this microeconomic reality, sustainable legal regulations are essential. Such that, these legal regulations should be established on a solid basis not only in certain countries but also in all countries in the world.

This study examines the social and economic experiences of female food vendors in the informal economy in urban Ghana using a particularized analysis to challenge prevailing opinions that women working in the informal economy inevitably experience social oppression and economic marginalization.

Synthesizing data from ethnographic field observation of female street food vendors in urban Ghana with past ethnographic research, this study focuses on the cultural, historical, political, social, and economic particularities of the Ghanaian context to understand the experience of female urban street food vendors.

Ghanaian women working in informal food vending in urban environments in the Southern regions of Ghana experience a myriad of social and economic benefits including: strong social support networks, access to entrepreneurial skills and startup capital; heightened social status, resulting from loyal customers and community recognition; empowerment through financial autonomy; as well as pride in providing economic resources for children. These social and economic experiences serve as counterevidence to the dominant perspective that women in the informal economy experience social oppression and economic marginalization.

This research contributes qualitative data regarding the social and economic support systems established by women in the informal food economy in Ghana. Furthermore, it emphasizes that development agencies and policymakers understand the importance of these contextual dynamics in developing policies aimed at the informal economy.

The aim of this chapter is a discussion of the post-modern shift towards symbolic economies as a substantial factor of transformation of urban public space. It argues that the shift towards a cinematic mode of production, in which production, distribution and consumption of images assume a dominant role in the social organisation, calls for a related cinematic urbanism analysing the prime role of cities as factories in the global system of symbolic production. The city of Florence is assumed as an exemplar case study, examining the way the symbolic productive chain develops towards the real and virtual domains. I argue that Florence represents an archetype of the cinematic city, anticipating since the renaissance the tendency towards global symbolic production as a dominant sector of its urban economy.