Seated in the heart of East Africa is Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. The city is known by many aliases; Africa’s Safari Capital, The Green City in the Sun, and The Gateway to Africa just to name a few. The name Nairobi however, comes from a Swahili word meaning cool waters, referring to the Nairobi River that runs through the city.
Estimates on the current population vary but, on average, the city proper is around 4 million people. If you count the entire metropolitan area estimates are closer to 6.5 million. By population, Nairobi is the 10th largest city in all of Africa.
When we visited Kenya, we made a point to stay in Nairobi and experience the urban side of East Africa. Our time there left me with a sense of amazement at how fast the city seemed to be growing and expanding right before our eyes. Coming from a background in civil engineering I naturally started dissecting every development and construction project I saw.
What I saw got me thinking…
“What’s happening in Nairobi might be a case for unplanned urbanization.”
Our arrival into Nairobi was through the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. We arrived late in the afternoon, and I remember how teeming the airport was as we walked from the tarmac into the international arrivals.
Later, I learned Jomo Kenyatta is actually the busiest airport in both east and central Africa; the 7th busiest on the continent. The arrivals and immigration area have no frills at all, and it seemed we were in a temporary building of sorts. Possibly while some improvements were being made. I shared the zigzagging immigration queue with smartly dressed business types, western safari-goers, and some foreign volunteers.
It felt like everyone was there on ‘official business’ one way or another. Once through immigration, we entered a large open ceiling room where all the luggage from the arriving flights had been offloaded. There were no carousels – just groups of bags neatly placed around the open floor. We found our bags easily.
Outside the arrivals area, the pick-up curb was lined with safari trucks as far we could see. As fast as one pulled up, another would leave loaded with safari-goers and all their duffels. For all the busyness that surrounded us, this was the most harmonious process we had encountered yet. We bypassed all the safari trucks and took a taxi to our hotel in the Westlands district.
As we made our way from the airport, Nairobi surprisingly felt like any other bustling capital city. Complete with traffic congestion, many pedestrians about and, in general, signs of just another day of business in Nairobi.
We drove along a modern divided-highway bearing four lanes in each direction in some areas and in excellent condition. We were on the Uhuru Highway.
I was impressed with Nairobi’s organized transportation system so far. We crossed several overpasses, traffic circles and interchanges all which appeared to be well designed, constructed and maintained. Kenya takes quite a bit of pride in its transportation system, and it is evident as well because the KeNHA (Kenya National Highways Authority) logo is displayed frequently on the bridges and interchanges.
Our hotel, in the Westlands district, was just north of Nairobi’s CBD (central business district). The hotel had an open-air rooftop lounge. An ideal place to enjoy a cold Tusker and take in an unobstructed panorama of Nairobi.
From atop our hotel, we could actually appreciate the scale of Nairobi’s sprawl. Although heavily developed, Nairobi is still very much a green city with sizable trees and pockets of forest throughout. Nairobi rightfully is… The Green City in the Sun.
Beyond the green of the city though, new construction of high-rise buildings is underway. The development includes both residential and office buildings, by my assertion. The highest density of new construction was in the Westlands and Upper Hill districts.
I have always appreciated an urban skyline littered with cranes; it is an indication of booming real estate development and construction industry. Those cranes are a red herring of a city with a strong and growing economy. The boom is undeniable in Nairobi.
Looking from the skyline down I noticed the traffic congestion actually seemed quite bad. (For any other Civil Engineers out there, I’d give it a level-of-service rating of E or F.) Along the arterial streets, traffic crawled along and jammed up at major intersections.
The surface streets were nowhere near as organized and fluid as the Uhuru Highway was. As the evening settled in the city I couldn’t help but think that this boom in construction might be long overdue… and possibly lagging behind an ongoing population boom.
To understand and appreciate any city you must look back at its history…
The area of modern-day Nairobi was originally a marshland occupied by the Maasai tribespeople.
European colonial rule forcibly removed the Maasai tribes; taking the land to be used for white ranchers.
In the late 1800s, the Uganda Railway came through; constructed by the British to connect Mombasa and Kisumu. This opened up East Africa for trade and supported European settlements in the area. The city of Nairobi grew up around a large railroad camp and supply depot. The location of this depot being the midway point in the rail line.
Nairobi grew to become the center for agricultural and commercial endeavors for Europeans in East Africa. Karen Blixen, the famed author of ‘Out of Africa’, was one such European who ran a coffee plantation only 7 miles outside Nairobi.
Through the early 1900s, Nairobi grew and expanded under colonial rule. Nairobi was the first stop for any Europeans exploring Africa. The colonial expansion caused significant friction between the natives and the Europeans. Post World War II, tensions came to a head precipitating the Mau Mau Uprising leading to Kenya’s independence in 1963. After Independence Nairobi officially became the capital of Kenya.
In the years following independence, Nairobi’s population swelled putting significant pressure on the city’s infrastructure. In the infancy of their autonomy – the city frequently suffered from water shortages, and power outages as services desperately tried to keep up with the population.
The 1970s brought substantial economic boom and modernization to the city. The construction of the Kenyatta International Conference Center and expansion of the Nairobi airport to that of a modern international facility spearheaded an influx of new economic opportunities. This economic growth gave way to additional improvements in the transportation infrastructure such as the Thika Highway, and the ongoing Lappset Railway.
With all the new construction we observed, it was evidence of a strong economy. In 2018, the GDP of Kenya was estimated to be 89 billion USD. In perspective, that is the seventh-largest GDP in all of Africa and ranks number 67 out of 192 countries.
Aside from being the countries capital city, Nairobi is also the economic capital of Kenya. The city is home to the Nairobi Securities Exchange, the second oldest in Africa and the fourth largest in terms of the trading volume.
Nairobi is home to thousands of thousands of Kenyan businesses including the communications company – Safaricom, electric and power company – KenGen, and the mobile payments service – JamboPay. More than a hundred international companies have set up headquarters in the city; Coca-Cola, Toyota, GM, Goodyear, IBM, Cisco, and GE to name a few. The city is a magnet for new foreign investment and is an Economic Hub in East Africa.
All this business and industry in Nairobi has brought new jobs and opportunities for Kenyans. The hope of creating a better life for one’s self and family is drawing people from rural areas throughout the country. When plotted over time Nairobi’s population growth nearly fits a logarithmic curve and is presently estimated at 5%. This growth rate is one of the highest for African cities. It is worth noting as well, Africa as a whole is experiencing a significant population boom. Improvements in healthcare and vaccinations have seen infant mortality rates fall to new lows.
Even with all the new business and opportunities being created within Nairobi – the supply of jobs still pales in comparison to the demand for them. The unemployment rate is estimated at around 40%.
So, this raises the question of where do the majority of these people end up?
The unfortunate reality is they often end up in one of the various slums within the city; Kibera being the largest in Nairobi. It is estimated that nearly 2.5 million people live in Nairobi’s many slums – this accounts for roughly half the population! To go one step further… all the slums combined occupy less than 10% of Nairobi’s metro area.
The slums have little to no access to the most basic of civil services. Access to clean water is intermittent, costly and must be hauled daily. Basic sanitation services are practically nonexistent. There is no rubbish collection and no sanitary sewer infrastructure.
We heard stories of ‘flying toilets‘(I’ll let you look that up for yourself), which really puts into perspective just how bad it is. If you were to walk down the streets of Kibera, you would mostly be walking atop a combination of trash and human waste compressed down by foot traffic.
The lack of sanitation services and plumbing puts residents at an extraordinarily high-risk of illness and disease. Electricity is available, but at a high cost and it is unreliable. Police support in the slums is also limited making crime an ongoing problem.
Although Nairobi may be a booming city full of economic opportunity, there is a significant portion of the population that are not getting to realize the benefits of this success.
The richest Kenyan’s live in Nairobi, but not all those who live in Nairobi are rich.
Once we got out on the streets and explored the city on foot, I began to see signs of unplanned urbanization.
In one such case, we came upon the construction of an elegantly designed modern egg-shaped office building. Its design could stand confidently among the buildings of London, New York or Singapore.
However, the building looked out of place with its surroundings. There appeared to be no consideration for planning/zoning.
The surrounding buildings and area included small independently run shops, a pop-up market, dilapidated medium to high-density residential buildings, retail, a bit of industrial, a church and a school. Pretty much a bit of everything.
Seeing a high-rise office building like this go up means when completed, there will be a higher number of people in this area then there presently is. These additional people will generate higher electrical demands, use more water and produce higher volumes of sanitary waste. Judging by the surroundings, it did appear as though the area had received any recent updates to the utility infrastructure. Power and communication served the area via overhead lines, and there were no signs of recent road construction, repaving work or repairs as a result of upgrades to the water or sewer systems that ran beneath our feet.
There were many places we came across with situations similar to this. Another street had several recently constructed mixed-use buildings. There was a casino, mall, upscale dining, office spaces, and apartments – really nice buildings.
However, the road they were built along was dirt and did not show evidence of ever having been paved. The dirt road was easily wide enough for three lanes of traffic in each direction.
We did get to see one sign of improvements going on though. Passing by, we observed work being done to improve the drainage on the street. There was a low point in the road that showed signs of repeated flooding. A problem often exacerbated by unplanned urbanization. The unchecked reduction of the permeable area within a city will increase stormwater runoff – a problem that must eventually be addressed.
From the outside and our view on the street, it is hard to honestly know the level of stress this new development is putting on the city. From my take, the cities infrastructure is either already hurting or is in for a wake-up call. Turning improvements that should be done proactively into something that now must be done reactively.
When we eventually left Nairobi, on our way to climb Kilimanjaro, it was with an excited optimism that Nairobi is a city to watch. The future looks to bring continued economic growth to the capital city, and the population boom will likely march on.
As a result, the city will be an incubator for new ideas and innovation. All the people we met and talked to, living in and around Nairobi, all shared some similar qualities. They were resilient, driven and all placed a high value on education.
All great cities throughout history have experienced growing pains at one point or another, but the solutions they develop to deal with those challenges end up as examples for others to follow and learn from.
