Changing by-laws in leafy suburbs will turn them into vertical ghettos

Houses in one of Nairobi’s leafy suburbs. We should expand the leafy suburbs instead of subduing them with non-leafy flats. Photo by XN Iraki.

About three decades ago, I came to Nairobi as an innocent school boy, raw from the countryside. Like many other Kenyans, I never left after school; I became part of the mosaic of Kenyans that call Nairobi their home.

I must however, confess that my heart and accent never left the countryside. I miss wide open spaces, the hills and the valleys, the trees swaying in the wind, the cattle chewing the cud, the birds that sing in the morning and the endless smiles from my neighbours.