By Steve Ouma

Last Tuesday, the Ministry of Housing convened a multi-stakeholders forum to discuss ‘a slum-free nation’. The meeting was inspired by many factors and outstanding amongst them was Vision 2030. This meeting could not have come at a more strategic moment. Our times have been widely regarded as an Urban Age.

This is in reference to the large number of populations moving to urban areas as sites of opportunities and modernity. For developing economies like Kenya, there is no doubt that urban centers have the best universities, hospitals, places of worship and many other amenities that offer dignity and well being. Approximately 34% of 33 million Kenyans were estimated to be living in cities and towns in 1999, with their numbers projected to grow to 64% million by 2030.

What concerned the meeting was that burgeoning urbanisation has presented itself numerous opportunities as well as challenges. The dialectic snare of cities that exclude the majority and gratify a minority is a worldwide feature. Its greatest advance presupposed the exclusion of immigrants, workers, women and the rest live in the affluence of gated communities.

Recognition of these ‘urban dilemmas’ which has for been mere tokenism for far too long, was now receiving attention through a process that would develop a "Slums Policy".

Indeed the call of the vision 2030 and its outshot, the Nairobi Metropolitan Strategy, is to ‘make Kenya a competitive and middle class nation’.

In numerous contexts, this movement towards ‘competitive’ and ‘middle class’ economies is characterised with reactive rhetoric such as ‘cities without slums’; ‘slum-free cities’; ‘slums prevention and elimination’ and so on.

Although the term ‘slums’ is now used in official reference to unplanned settlements, its presumed homogenisation of these settlements as well as potential of the term to question the legitimacy of urban citizens who reside therein must be resolved. During the forum, there was no doubt that theme of the day ‘a slum-free nation’ was widely influenced by the modernist slogan of Cities Without Slums.

While all efforts must be applied to deal with the deplorable situation of the unplanned urban settlements and the over 60 per cent of city citizens who are accommodated there, we must be clear on what are the causes of this marginality and indignity. Amongst a plethora of factors, two may stand out namely: the history of governance of discrimination in urban areas and contemporary logic of urban modernity.

Historically, many of Kenya’s urban centers were established over the last 100 years and evolved as seats of the colonial government. The most visible manifestation was the racially segregated residential layout of towns, forming the basis of a skewed system of distribution of all resources.

There were white residential areas, where natives required a pass to visit, and only for reasons like work. Housing in the different sectors of the city varied to reflect the racially inspired political hierarchy.

Deplorable situation

The ‘white’ areas consisted of bungalows set in spacious gardens, the houses in the Asian quarters were almost straight out of Bombay and the houses for natives where designed to specifically accommodate a migrant workforce and little else. The natives had restrictions on entry, travel, or settlement in any part of the city.

With Independence in 1963, the management of urban centers shifted from the colonial administration to a local national government. The segregation of residential areas was perpetuated by the new administration, but this time, based on economic class rather than race. The former white parts of the city remained exclusive. Within the CBD and these high-income residential areas, planning and service standards were maintained.

Recently, it is the very discourse and practice of urban modernisation that has produced further marginality and informal settlements. Under the rubric of creating ‘competitive and world class urban centers’ authorities have perpetuated a myth that the future of urban areas is to make them entrepreneurial spaces that can attract global capital and investments.

For this reason urban plans such as Nairobi Metropolitan Strategy are more about mega-investment rather than safeguarding citizens’ dignity.

Results for the so-called ‘competitive and world class urban centers’ have been ‘market-driven displacements’ where urban poor are pushed to the periphery of the city and other ecologically fragile locations.

It must, therefore, be agreed that improving the unplanned urban settlements and dignity of residents, must engage with multiple interest and power structures rather than mere mega-urbanisation projects. The policy must offer systematic and critical appraisal of the assumptive modernity by evaluating underlying assumptions that shape common understanding of informal settlements, policy and governance practices.

Writer is the Executive Director of Pamoja Trust.

soma@pamojatrust.org