Unplanned development: 'The place of cool waters' was never meant to be a city but a railway town

Nairobi’s central business district skyline, a growing hub for executive-level corporate networks and regional business leadership in East Africa. File, Standard]

In the beginning, there was the swamp. The Maasai called it enkare nyrobi —“the place of cool waters”, where they brought their cows to drink before retreating to their manyattas beyond the Empakasi plains.

In 1899, Ronald Owen Preston and his gang of plate-layers for the Uganda railway landed on the swamp and decided to set up a depot in the inhospitable spot teeming with wildlife. But Preston was a daring man.