Is Nairobi’s reign as a regional hub in its final days?

Nairobi, Kenya: Last week, I had an errand to run in Nairobi’s central business district (CBD). What was supposed to be a 30 minute pop-in and pop-out situation took nearly half my day. Two hours after leaving my station on Mombasa Road, less that ten kilometres from the CBD, I was still sweating in traffic, not yet there.

All this was occasioned by a plan to ‘decongest’ the city’s roads, the biggest hallmark being a conspicuous display of concrete-filled yellow and white stripped tanks welded together to look like the narrow entrance into a cattle dip.