Over the past few weeks the US Border Patrol and Riverside County California police have been the target of allegations that they engaged in racial profiling and set a quota for immigration arrests. Among other places, law enforcement officers swept an informal day labor site, making several arrests. These actions, and many of the news stories reporting them, help reinforce the stereotype that day laborer is an immigration issue, and nothing more.

To call it a stereotype is of course to suggest that it is not completely true. There's no denying that many day laborers lack documentation to remain in the US legally. But a comprehensive survey of thousands of day laborers across the US revealed that fully 1/4 of them are legal residents. Day labor is not just about immigration policy, it also about labor, land use, and simple economics.

Nikhil Agrawal is a double major in Biochemisty and Economics while Sumit Agarwal is an Economics Major at Washington University in St Louis. They are both also pre-med but they became involved in their campus's Habitat for Humanity chapter and that helped them learn a lot about poverty alleviation. This experience germinated in them an interest in microfinancing and small scale business. They came upon openair.org and our research and discovered in us potential collaborators to help the entrepreneurial spirit flourish in St Louis.

They are working with me and City officials to develop a new public market in St Louis and this blog will follow their efforts!

Thus far they have read some recent work done by Gregg Kettles and myself and recently published in Zoning Practice, they've read my work on the benefits of public markets (Economic Development Quarterly 1995) and they've read Jennifer Ball's work on Street Vendors (Planning Advisory Service report).

They are engaging in some basic research regarding the foot traffic in the park they've targeted for a market (http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/parks/parks_div/lucas.html) and they're engaging with city officials - let's see what happens next!

Good luck to Nikhil and Sumit (same last name, but not related)!!

Los Angeles, California has long suffered from an image that it is car-friendly, pedestrian hostile place. There is plenty of irony in this. The balmy climate draws one outside, but there's no place you'd want to walk to once you get there. Or so the story goes. Downtown redevelopment during the car crazy 1950s and 60s encouraged this view. Streets were widened to speed automobile traffic, while sidewalks remained narrow afterthoughts.

This week the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved new design standards for downtown. Instead of requiring developers to widen streets, they'll be asked to widen sidewalks. According to the Downtown Design Guide published by the Urban Design Studio of the L.A. Department of City Planning, the extra sidewalk space is intended for outdoor dining and "commercial activity." http://urbandesignla.com/downtown_guidelines.htmp. graphic at 16.