Terms
•Planning, Borderland, Peri-urban area
Planning “...use of reason and understanding to reduce collective uncertainty” Hoch (1994
15). Addressing a state of tension (problems) by invoking cogent accounts of why events
Exploring challenges of (and opportunities
for) urban planning in the ‘borderlands’
using Nairobi peri-urban area as a case study.
occur and then deriving ideas and actions from these accounts of how to prevent the tensions
from exacerbating.
•Planning as an activity.
 Planning as a way of understanding various systems and procedures.
Borderland- An indeterminate area, situation or condition.
Peri-urban area as a borderland?
Thuo A.D. Maina
Positioning Geography: Strategic Issues in
Geographical Education
Urbanization
Peri-urban areas
•Peri-urban areas lie at the interface between urban and rural, in some form of
transition from strictly rural to urban. They commonly comprise a mixture of
encroached farming land, older settlements surrounded by new developments,
industrial sites and slums. These areas often form the immediate urban- rural
interface, and may eventually evolve into being fully urban.
• A “hermaphroditic landscape”
•The process of urbanization is one of the most important dimensions of
economic, social and physical change.
•Rapid urban population growth means an increasing demand for urban land,
particularly for housing, but also for various other urban uses.
•In many countries, the increasing demand is most likely to affect (or is affecting)
land use in the peri-urban areas.
•The conversion of agricultural land to residential uses is leading to the rapid
transformations in the agricultural production, spatial structure, social structure,
land ownership and land market in the rural-urban fringe
•The diversity of residents, land uses and economic activities means that peri-urban
areas are seen in different terms and are valued in different ways by diverse groups
of people and organizations.
Urbanisation in Kenya
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Nairobi and peri-urban
areas
Strict laws such as strict building codes and
methods of direct control of movements“apartheid-like controls”
After independence (1963), permit to visit
urban areas was removed.
Kenya registered high rates of urban growth
largely from rural–urban migration.
characterised by a primate urban systemNairobi.
Nairobi city accounted for 51, 36, 34 and 28
per cent of total urban population in 1969,
1979, 1989 and 1999 respectively.
current night population estimated at 3
million from a mere 350,000 in 1963.
Why is urbanisation taking
place in peri-urban areas when
there is evident land
development sprawl within the
city?
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CONT‟D
Drivers/conditions in Nairobi peri-urban area
•Housing and land market failure
•Social-cultural
High costs of land and non-provision of public housing; colonial land ownership legacy.
Newcomers who are individual-oriented rather than communal-oriented; binging new challenges
which are complex than existing local social and institutional structures can handle; Treatment of
land which is cultural and symbolic good as economic good; Increased incidences of heirs selling
their inherited parcels of land.
“Mortgage schemes cover only a small segment of those in formal employment… Formal housing provided for by
mortgage schemes within the City is out of reach for most of the City residents… Peri-urban residential housing thus
becomes a preferred location for such people with no regular income... [where] they self-build their houses incrementally “
Population increase-
“You can‟t tell „vijana‟ (young people) to go to „shamba‟ (farm) and cultivate... They will just laugh at you… Who wants to
get dirty? But it is because they know that they are likely to get a better job in Nairobi City or a well paying construction
work in this area”
Urban population through natural and immigration .
•Weak and conflicting institutional regulations
“The younger generation view agriculture as backward and even farmers belittle themselves especially in the face of
immigrants who either have a formal job or well paying businesses in the city”
Legal and jurisdictional overlaps among the institutions/departments;
“Local governments in areas of the Nairobi‟s peri-urban areas were structured for rural based operations [and] as a result
they are not equipped with the capacity to oversee land use development controls in these newly urbanizing areas”
Dual
legal system whereby customary and formal land ownership systems.
“The Kenyan government does not have a comprehensive policy on urbanization [which] has made urban development
occur in uncoordinated way leading to uncontrolled urban growth …Also lacking is a policy on housing; the state has done
little towards guiding the way its planning is achieved… This has led to serious shortages of decent and affordable houses
within the city”
•Economic drivers
Era of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs); reduced investment opportunities; liberalisation
of public transport sector; Proximity to Nairobi city; Reduced income from agriculture; reduced
availability non-paid family farm labour.
“Under structural adjustment and economic reform, credit systems for small farmers have declined substantially. At the
same time, the cost of inputs and farm implements has increased, leaving most farmers caught in a cost-price squeeze”
•Environmental pollution/conflicts
Reduced storm water ground infiltration causing flooding; Excessive pressure on land as result of
land shortage is causing erosion; Poor solid wastes; Conflicts.
“The pursuit of exchange values …does not necessarily result in the maximisation of use values for others. Indeed, the
simultaneous push for goals is inherently contradictory and a continuing source of tensions, conflict, and irrational
settlements”
“...urban related land uses are impacting negatively on agriculture… For example, flooding due to run-off from paved/builtup areas has a great impact on agriculture along the river valley… Contractors are also discarding building wastes after
construction which leads to drying up of dams due to siltation”
•Landholders‟ responses
Evolved varieties of local/human-level responses to enable them live in a rapidly changing
environment; Land use conversions in the Nairobi peri-urban areas is as a result of both the actions
of the landholders and outcomes of such actions.
“The coffee industry has, however, been faced with serious problems of low payments in the world market. As a result,
farmers are beginning to neglect the crop so as to invest in other paying enterprises like dairy farming and horticulture”
Consequences on Nairobi peri-urban
area
Land conversions
Decline of commercial
centres
Haphazard
development
Problem with solid waste management
Sprawling residential
houses
Poor infrastructure
Rental houses
Stone and red-soil
mining
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Whose knowledge to use?
What knowledge to use?
• Multiple perspectives exist.
• There is no consensus on what the problem is.
• No single solution can be agreed upon.
•Multiple competing or conflicting goals exist.
•There is tendency to rely overly on quantitative data found in census figures
and land use statistics
•Complex layers of difference that need to be appreciated and sensitively
accommodated in reviewing change in peri-urban areas and planning/policy issues
associated with it.
•Penetrate into the subaltern world in order to access aspects which are subjugated
by the dominant urban planning narratives.
•An adoption of social, interactive and political process.- embedded in local cultures
and histories of a place. Tapping into taken-for-granted aspects different groupshave powerful roles in organising thoughts, perception and actions.
•Sensitive to the „lifeworlds‟ thus removing mistrust and suspicion that abound
between them and the government.
•Incorporation of notions of political judgement, moral vision and emotional
sensitivity and therefore provide a way to act reasonably rather than attempt the
impossible tasks of meeting the normative [planning] criteria.
•Adoption of a qualitative methodology may provide alternative ways of knowing.
What can be learned from such a „city‟ that is outside the planning
realms of the formal city?
Persistent dualismBinaries such as formal/informal, legal/illegal, planned/unplanned,
secure/insecure, rural/urban etc
“...have built their own city, without any reference whatsoever to the whole
bureaucratic apparatus of planning and control in the formal city next door, and they
are rightly proud of what they have achieved (Hall and Pfeiffer 2000 15).
Why is dual urban development taking place side by side?
•The functions of the State are not fully embedded into the society and State
apparatuses are widely perceived to be mere instruments of few members of the
society. In such a system, nepotism and corruption prevails, and majority of the
people feel/are excluded. This makes the excluded evade* or contest regulations
by State departments.
•*Equate informality with illegality, which has been a dominant narrative when
reference is made to urban development in areas outside „the reach‟ of urban
planning controls.
•The importance of norms, values and informal rules ... are ignored when the focus
is turned to legal status of such areas. In doing so, these areas became targets of
planning authorities who tries „to put things right‟.
•If the focus is moved away from the notions of the legal or illegality and the
departure from the normative mindset of “improving” these areas, we may start to
learn something new from the urbanisation that is taking place in undeniably
difficult situations of vulnerability and depravity.
•These new „ways of knowing and doing‟ are both part of „informal (traditional)‟
and „formal (modernity)‟ mechanisms. This is a hybrid situation that indicates
ingenuity of the „city-builders‟ in building productive lives under situations of
severe constraints.
•This is an indication that, other than hegemonic planning ideals adopted and
inherited from Western Europe and North America, there is a mode of urban
place making which is present and evolving in other cultures. E.g. Although there is a „legal‟
land ownership system (modern) that guarantees statutory security to property, there are also local norms and
practices (that are neither traditional or modern) that reinforce rights and relationships outside „official‟ legal
systems but within a social framework that accepts them as legitimate.
•Identifies „strategic niches,‟ that is, places where novelties can be germinated and
nurtured.
•Although the ingenuity is driven by agency, there are also instances where
calculation or desperation (or both) are manifested.
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•Formal planning control is in an awkward position due to lack of explicit polices,
programmes and practices that guide development. E.g. enforcement of existing
policies and regulations is inconsistent due to jurisdictional overlaps and
contradictions between various government departments, and the processes are
cumbersome.
•Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a flexible and hybrid planning system rather
than blueprint plans that ignore daily struggles and negotiations.
• Such a system need to balance the desire of actors to remain autonomous (to
assure them of their bargaining power and control) and the needs of the
central/local government to normatively see people organised, services delivered
and planning regulations enforced.
Asante
Thank You
•A format that generates trust amongst interdependent actors.
•“Epistemic humility” a strategy that looks for intersections among different
positioning and rationalities and enters into a dialogue at such situated moments.
This entails going beyond scientific or technical knowledge to involve practical
wisdom, emotional sensitivity, judgement, ethics and deliberation about values with
reference to praxis.
•Negotiation skills and Reflexivity.
•?Planning and planning education.
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