Satellite towns can sort out urban mess

NAIROBI: Kenyans celebrated Christmas amid reports of mountains of smelly garbage that have choked Nairobi's CBD and a number of residential estates. Garbage per se is not the main problem. Indeed, it is only a symptom of a bigger drawback that city authorities hoped to address through the Nairobi Integrated Urban Development Plan for Nairobi City (NIUPLAN).

The words "sustainable urban development"; "integrated development" and "improved living conditions" feature prominently in the NIUPLAN. The plan sets in motion a system of addressing challenges related to land use, urban economy, population, settlements, urban infrastructure, environmental disasters and so on. This plan covering the 2014-2030 stretch aims at entrenching harmony, convenience, good management, security and social order right across the city.

Viewed against what Nairobi is today, the plan sounds hopelessly utopian. The deeper reality is a lot messier than it may seem. Up until formulation of the NIUPLAN, Nairobi did not have a broad framework that could guide its development. Indeed, the only plan implemented was the 1948 Nairobi Master Plan for a Colonial Capital (NMPCC) which, among other things, provided neighbourhood units for the working class and segregated living quarters for Europeans, Asians and Africans. Nevertheless, the plan provided a network of open spaces and preserved wetlands most of which we have now built on. Do you still ask why Nairobians have been suffering greatly each time the rains come?

The only other major plan for Nairobi was the 1973 Nairobi Metropolitan Growth Strategy that was essentially stillborn. It is however said the plan inspired urban planning in Malaysia. In recent years, a host of short-term, narrow and largely knee-jerk plans have emerged to counter the runaway mess in transport, water supply and sanitation. In this mix, the so-called private developers emerged most lacking in decorum and driven by the hyena instinct. With City Hall in slumber the private developer has left a major nightmare in his wake.

Consequently, we now have a spiralling, unsafe and dirty city in which 60 per cent of residents live in slums of one kind or another. The residents inhabiting more organised, 'high-class' estates live in perpetual fear, suffer permanent siege mentality best demonstrated by self-inflicted prisons with high, razor-wired walls, electric gates and guard dogs.

For hundreds of thousands of others, "home" is little more than hundreds of crowded plastic-and-tin dwellings, narrow alleyways, aged mounds of unsightly garbage, pools of fetid sewer, disharmony and extreme personal and collective inconveniences. Yet in this seeming drudgery lives highly innovative people who gave us the kadogo-economy — currently taken up by virtually all companies —and who can teach residents of Muthaiga, Runda or Karen several things about how to live as a community.

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In between these two extremes are the Dandoras, Umojas, Kayoles and Githurais where poorly designed, crime-infested collection of discordant high-rise blocks have continued to 'steal' the soul of the resident, giving noisy preachers, pretenders-at-wizardly and brewers of second-rate liquor opportunities to reap big as they pretend to soothe lost souls.

But do we have to live like this? No we don't. By 2030, Nairobi is expected to have a population of over 5 million people. Everyone will need a place to live, work, pray and play. Residents will need to travel easily, fast and conveniently to and from home, work and social places.

Before Nairobi can call itself a world-class African metropolis as envisaged under Vision 2030, it will need to offer a world class living and working environment where residents and visitors alike can enjoy a host of social and economic opportunities. This is the whole essence of integrated urban planning and development captured under the concept of satellite towns. Kenyans are ready for smaller, independent, thoroughly organised urban areas that can change the game as far as living and working in urban areas is concerned.

Models around Thika Greens and to some extent, Konza City, best exemplify what I am talking about.

Of them all, Tatu City — though the project is yet to fully commence owing to a number of protracted court cases — offers a perfect model. This proto city is modeled as a dynamic mix-use urban area that will accommodate some 70,000 residents on 2,400 acres.

As CNN described it, this will be the place for upwardly-mobile professionals; flashy cars cruising along brightly lit avenues; young urbanites zipping past manicured lawns, luxury condominiums; state-of-the-art labs and million-dollar ideas. Others regard such towns as smart, futuristic developments that combine leisure facilities, business opportunities and educational facilities for their residents.

However, such descriptions invite criticisms that ambitious urban development schemes will shut out the poor and that by coming up with them, we in Kenya could be jumping the gun.

To avoid converting satellite towns into exclusive areas where the elite can lock themselves away from hoi polloi, national and county governments can adopt the concept.