NYC Is About to Add 4,000 Street Vendors. Los Angeles Has Ideas to Steal. Curbed 1 hr ago Alissa Walker The past year has proven, more than ever, that street food is vital. The small-business owners who run sidewalk carts and food trucks — the original outdoor-dining experts — not only preserved access to good cheap meals throughout the pandemic; they’re paving a delicious path back to in-person interaction. Which is why calls to legalize street vending — which has, historically, required complex permit procedures and often operated at the margins of the law — have been stepped up to promote economic recovery at this crucial moment. Investing in the “open-air economy,” as Rudy Espinoza, executive director of the Los Angeles organization Inclusive Action for the City, calls it, is also a way cities can step up to support the communities hit hardest by the pandemic. “Street vendors are a microcosm for the economy,” he says. “If we want to make sure the working poor have a chance, we want to make sure we’re investing in a way to get them back into the ring.” Across the country, cities are proposing policies that would strip away red tape for vendors, and New York City, where antiquated street vending policies have created a competitive black market for permits, is poised to see a dramatic expansion of its street vendor system for the first time in four decades. Intro 1116, passed earlier this year, adds 400 new permits per year for a decade starting in 2022. The total number, by the end, will nearly have doubled. New York City could actually end up with taco trucks on every corner.