Kenya: Nairobi Lacks the Attributes of a Harmonious City

	Email This Page Print This Page Comment on this article View comments

The Nation (Nairobi)

OPINION
5 October 2008
Posted to the web 6 October 2008

Rasna Warah
Nairobi

I have spent all my life in large cities, and until recently, have had no desire to live in a small town or village.

For me, cities have an allure that no village can match. They are vibrant, dynamic, unpredictable.

Cities provide "the essential balance between chaos and order" that British sociologist Charles Landry believes is essential to sustain innovation, creativity and enterprise.

Cities have sparked the imaginations of philosophers, artists, writers and entrepreneurs and are the drivers of economies as they create wealth, enhance social development and provide employment.

But in recent months, I have been contemplating moving to a quieter place, where the pace is slower and where human beings are gentler.

This is because Nairobi is manifesting all the ingredients that make up a dysfunctional or unharmonious city.

According to UN-Habitat, a harmonious city is one that is equitable and sustainable, one where some groups do not concentrate resources while others remain impoverished or marginalised and where the price of urban living is not paid by the environment.

UN-Habitat's State of the World's Cities 2008/9 report, which will be officially launched later this month, states that Nairobi ranks among the most unequal cities in Africa, along with Johannesburg, Cape Town, Abidjan and Maputo.

Although South African and Namibian cities have higher levels of inequality, Nairobi is increasing gaining a reputation as a city of slums. Here, as in many other Kenyan cities, slum dwellers constitute the majority of the urban population.

To make matters worse, the widening disparities between the haves and the have-nots are impacting economic growth and sowing the seeds of discontent and social unrest.

Urban inequalities are not just bad for business, but also for politics.

The UN-Habitat report states that economic growth cannot be sustained in countries experiencing high levels of inequality because extreme inequalities increase the risk of political tension and reduce gains made in economic development.

Egalitarian societies "absorb" economic growth better than those characterised by high levels of inequality.

Mrs Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of UN-Habitat, believes that pro-poor social programmes and investments in urban infrastructure and services are among the most effective means of mitigating the negative consequences of inequality.

However, when inequalities lead to social unrest, governments are forced to spend more public resources on security, rather than on social services or infrastructure, which end up deepening levels of inequality.

Nairobi and many other urban centres in the country have already witnessed the consequences of poor planning, lack of investment in slums and public infrastructure and growing inequalities.

The rage expressed by the urban poor after the December 2007 elections was a cry for help. It didn't take much to set them off. Politicians know this all too well, that is why they are not keen to improve the lives of the poor. Middle class people are harder to control or incite.

Moreover, it has often been claimed that many politicians have a vested interest in maintaining the deplorable living conditions in slums -- not only do some of these politicians own some of these uninhabitable structures (and earn rent from them), many view slum dwellers as an essential voting bloc.

Nairobi also fails as a harmonious city because it has one of the worst public transport systems in the world.

Most cities, including those in rich countries, are looking at ways in which to persuade people to use public transport. This often entails making public transport safer, more environmentally friendly, more affordable and more reliable.

Players in the public transport sector, whether public or private, are forced to comply with certain standards and rules. But in Nairobi any Njoroge, Otieno or Hassan can wake up one morning and decide to be a player in the public transport sector.

All they need is a vehicle and a licence, and hey presto, they can literally control how people in the city move from one point to another without any regulatory body overseeing them.

This is why matatus in Nairobi can get away with showing pornography to school-going children and can break every traffic rule without suffering censure, apart from the occasional (or regular) bribe to a police officer.

It is also the reason congestion is becoming a problem. There is no mass commuter system to cater for Nairobi's population.

What is worse, there is little effort on the part of government authorities to replace this highly dysfunctional system with one that serves the public interest better in terms of affordability, environmental protection, accessibility and even safety.

Nairobi is a city that has first world aspirations, but has failed to learn that the world's best cities are those that exhibit visionary planning, tolerance, creativity, inclusiveness and a respect for cultural heritage.

In Nairobi, all these attributes are sorely lacking. This is why I am in search of another place to call my own.

Ms Warah is an editor with the UN. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations.

Read comments. Write your own.

AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.

Share this on: Facebook Digg Del.icio.us StumbleUpon Muti

Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >>

Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account

Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement.