The city of Nairobi has a secret order; do not be distracted by matatu chaos. You can’t see that order from the streets but from the air.
The city has concentric circles that must have been deliberately designed, much like ancient city of Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains of Peru.
Get atop any high rise building and you will be astonished by the patterns of the roads and buildings. Have you noted that streets in the central business District (CBD) are all North -South or East-West?
The CBD is the eye of the city with bigger and bigger concentric circles like the layers of an onion. Ring roads reinforce the concentric circles.
Industrial area
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The designers of CBD really “protected it.” The first concentric circle is a layer of institutions and other barriers.
The Kenya Polytechnic or Technical University was the southern border of CBD before getting into railway yard and Industrial Area.
The coffee mills and fresh food market were next to railway station and also formed part of southern border. The western border of CBD is Uhuru Park that mimics Hyde Park in London. The northern part of CBD was another institution, University of Nairobi.
Can anyone verify to me that there used to be a cemetery next to national theatre, the current UoN parking? Curiously, the eastern side of CBD was never enclosed with a major institution or land mark except maybe national archives. Kenyans have created their own border, Moi Avenue, formerly government road.
This road divides the “cool” part of Nairobi from the hustlers’ side with well known Likoni road, Ngala and River roads. These streets are undergoing gentrification.
The second concentric circles are the periurban residential areas bordering CBD like Upper Hill (before it became home of high rise buildings), Westlands, Riverside, Parklands, Ngara, Madaraka, and Hurlingham. There are also institutions like Nairobi Primary School, Kenyatta National Hospital and Nairobi hospital. We can add Nairobi West, though to the south, South C and B, Lavington to the west, Spring Valley, Kitisuru and Loresho to the north-west.
The east has Pangani and Muthaiga; Eastleigh and Buru Buru and old estates like Makongeni and Kaloleni.
The third concentric circle is more fascinating. To the south we have Industrial Area, to the south-west we have Nairobi National Park, to the south-east we have schools like Pangani Girls, Starehe Boys Centre and Pumwani. To the east, we have the Muthaiga Golf Club and Mathare Hospital. City Park is also there (what happened to my mtego wa panya), to the northeast we have Karura forest.
To the north, we have University of Nairobi’s Kabete campus and the Kenya School of Government, which extends to join upper Kabete Campus, Kabete National Polytechnic and ILRI.
To the east, the showground and adjoining Ngong forest protect the city from the rest of the world. There is a strange breach past Lavington into Kawangware. But a few big schools like Rusinga have formed the border. We can’t forget Jomo Kenyatta International Aiport to the south. After this third concentric circle, we get into the rural areas much like any other in Kenya. There is little difference between Wangige and Shamakhokho. It is interesting how Nairobi was “secured” using institutions and other barriers like forests and to make it exclusive.
Noted how institutions separate the affluent from hustlers?
What is between Spring Valley or Loresho and Wangige or Uthiru that does not apply to other towns in the country. They are “unprotected” despite trying to mimic Nairobi with their Muthaigas and Rundas.
Whoever designed the city of Nairobi must have been a genius. He or she even left land banks with coffee estates that later became residences like Runda. There is definitely lots of English influence benchmarking with their cities like London. The designers probably did not expect such fast population growth.
But they got a solution, high rise buildings. The problem with Nairobi is that it’s a parasite, its growth depends on other counties for water, power, food and more recently even waste disposal. Remember the debate on a waste dumping site in Murang’a? Very paradoxical, get clean drinking water from the same county and dump waste in the same county…
Now, the city is filled to the brim. Devolution never devolved population to the counties; it increased the allure of the city with elite from counties flocking back to the city with their money. That is why the real estate bubble has remained a myth. The pressure from Nairobi’s limited space has opened up adjoining areas like Kajiado, Machakos and Kiambu, which have become Nairobi’s bedrooms.
Seen booming Ongata Rongai, Kikuyu, Mlolongo, Kinoo, Ruaka, Muchatha and Banana? What the original designers of the city envisaged is far different from our Nairobi, now a hotbed of competition driven by international finance, local wealth, and a mystic that keeps distilling the brightest and ambitious from the rural areas.
We can’t rule out some illegal wealth driving the city of Nairobi. Nairobi is overflowing. Does it need a redesign? What of a substitute, a new capital?
-The writer teaches at the University of Nairobi
