City officials in Mexico City are preparing for a showdown with the city's 35,000 street vendors after mayor Marcelo Ebrard announced plans to force the vendors from the city's historic downtown district to government-subsidized properties away from the city center. The street vendors that swarm Mexico City's historic district are fighting the initiative and state their sales will be badly decreased by the move. The plan is part of a nationwide effort to fight an underground economy that experts estimate employs as much as 60 percent of Mexico's workforce but pays no taxes and receives no social services benefits.
See "Mexico tries to reform street economics", Paul Kiernan, Business Week, August 19, 2007