Feel good surveys versus focusing on substance

DC's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has a survey up on "improving street vending." This is an issue I have paid attention to over the years. While I haven't been involved with the issue directly, I've spent a fair amount of time with some of the people who were very active in the issue for a long time.

The problem I have with surveys like this is that generally customer surveys find that people will buy X or Y or want access to X or Y, etc., but for the most part customer interest isn't the issue.

The reality is that the issue with "improving" street vending is no different from "improving" retail in neighborhood commercial districts.

Customer interest is less of an issue than these four issues:

- number of available customers (also location)
- creativity of potential entrepreneurs/store owners/cart owners
- access to capital (doing anything other than hotdogs and chips is more expensive) both for equipment and inventory
- the regulatory environment/barriers to entry/opportunities to participate presented by the DC Government (such as requiring higher end and much more expensive carts, etc.)

Here are the survey questions:

1. How often do you eat food from one of DC’s street vendors?
2. If you do eat food from vendors, what kind of food do you eat from street vendors?
3. Are you most likely to:

• Stumble onto a vendor while headed to my favorite lunch spot?
• Hear about a vendor by word of mouth?
• Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to find new vendors?

4. How far would you travel to eat at a vendor?
5. Are there areas of the city where you'd like to see more vending?

(A key issue is segmentation. Office workers are a distinct daytime segment. But they are hard to reach, and increasingly people have less time for lunch/eat at their desk, etc.)

Another problem is that DCRA sees street vending more as a revenue issue--getting the licensing fees--rather than as something more entrepreneurial, and about how vending contributes (or fails to contribute) to vital places.

Am I wrong in thinking that the DCRA survey is somewhat pathetic?

New York City offers some interesting resources:

-- Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center
-- Vendy Awards acknowledging innovative street vending
-- publications
-- Inclusive Cities webpage on street trading/vending
-- Center for Urban Pedagogy Street Vendor Guide
--New York Street Food blog

In places like San Francisco/The SF Bay region and Denver, more established restauranteurs are getting involved in street vending, partly to broaden their revenue sources. See "Oakland to debut street food fest" from the San Francisco Business Times.