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attribute it to the city’s fast-paced and capitalist living conditions, but to their rural upbringing, which some might describe as ‘traditional’ rather than ‘modern’. From an anthropological standpoint, more detail on the interplay between traders’ and artisans’ responses in the survey and their actual practices would have been desirable. This, however, does not compromise the well-argued case that Mary Kinyanjui makes against top-down urban planning that disregards the skills, knowledge and ethics of self-organized workers in African cities, whose practices and business models are obscured rather than understood if we keep referring to them as ‘informal’.