Sub-Saharan Africa » Kenya » Nairobi
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D4D Nairobi Propositive Analysis |
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| Nairobi is a natural capital for eastern Africa due to its continental centrality and climatic conditions. It was established in the railroad paths that link the enclaves of the continent to the seaports. Its regional setting is in the hinge of to ecosystems, including the hilly watery downs to the north that reach to the Rif Valley and the Savanna like Valley of the Athy river. It was in this confluence of ecosystems (see Amman) that the railroad station/trade post developed into a colonial capital.
Nairobi is not circular. It is linear along the frontier between the two ecosystems. This has not yet been understood and some recurrent tendency to produce orbital-radial infrastructures is producing the chaotic congestion that Nairobi suffers from today. It is going to grow from 3 to 5 million inhabitants in the next few years and will suffer a tenfold increase from 300,000 to 3 million cars as a result of economic development. In order to avoid becoming a ghetto-metropolis, Nairobi must base its metropolitan structure along the railroad line, created and adapted to the topographic conditions on the border of both ecosystems. From Nairobi to Thyka and Ongata, the metropolis has to produce a set of centralities that will take the burden off of central Nairobi. The policy approach should include linearity served by the expansion of the commuter train services and by a reticular road network away from the congestive ring road. |
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Nairobi Metropolitan Centralities development around Commuter train stations. |
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| The Nairobi Propositive Analysis proposal to reshape Nairobi Metropolis on first a linear, then later reticular, structure was well accepted in-housed by the several administrative layers of the Kenyatta Government. This has to take shape through the development of the commuter train service, whose rail track layout reflects and coincides with the inner metropolitan structure of Nairobi.
Each station of the commuter train becomes an alternative centrality in the new metropolitan structure of Nairobi able to attract and to foster economic and commercial development, social facilities and housing provision. This decentralized poly-nuclear subsystem will take part of the pressure off of central Nairobi, multiply diverse location accessibilities and ease land prices and traffic congestion. Development of these centralities (infrastructure investment, land management, social and economic governance of urban units) is the next step in this transformative process. |
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Nairobi at a cross |
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| The structure of Nairobi Metropolis is a cross.
The four main urban corridors to Thika, Athi River, Limuru and Ongata Rongai, form a quasi perfect cross dividing Nairobi in four quadrants: North, East, South and West. Every quadrant has a different ecosystem, different directionality, and has to be planned in account of that. The completion of the mobility structure for Nairobi must have two strategies: 1) The mass public transport: The development of centralities around the commuter stations along the branches of the cross (3) to prioritize rail access to Nairobi Center. 2) The road network: The formation of a consistent mobility network by completion of the short missing links across the existing dominating directionalities of the quadrants (3) The result will be a homogeneous a resilient (stable equilibrium) mobility network linked to the metropolitan axes of the cross. The axes would be served by the commuter train service for access to the CBD. The territorial (land-use) evolution of the structure will have two main tendencies: 1) The CBD economic activity expansion southwards, across the actual buffer of the Central Station and in the direction of the airport. 2) The housing land provision in response to the annual growth and need for 2,5 sq. km of new urban land. The infrastructure for that provision would be a reticular metropolitan network to the eastwards flat, featureless and environmentally poor land. |
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Water-Environment-Transport and Land-Use integration |
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| Nairobi is experiencing a rapid change. The Challenge of growth is being addressed by a joint effort of the Kenya Government with the World Bank (NaMSIP and NUTRIP Project) with the collaboration of other donors as African Development Bank (AfDB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) and UN-Habitat.
The approach is an integrated approach. From 2011 the strategic vision had integrated Transport and Land-use (Environment implicit) in a metropolitan vision. (see previous documents in this webpage). This document shows the complementary integration of water and the urban environment into the full picture. The definition of storm water flood collection parks and water recycling facilities altogether with urban agriculture, social leisure amenities integrated in the metropolitan and urban fabric proves to be an easy task due to the particular topographic structure of Nairobi Metropolis. Management is next. |
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Kiambu Strategy within Metropolitan Nairobi |
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| The New Kenya Constitution 2010 starts a process of Devolution by which local county authorities take a greater role on governance. Nairobi Metropolis is now composed of 5 Counties: Nairobi, Kiambu, Machakos, Murang’a and Kajiado.
Nairobi is the Central County, the consolidated metropolitan core. Highly urbanized it needs specific responses to urban problems. Those responses, as the development of a Commuter Train service under way (see previous documents in this webpage), will determine the success of the metropolis. However, the future growth of the metropolis is dependent on the structure and development undertaken in the other counties. Among them Kiambu is the most relevant one as it includes: - The environmental relevant areas of Kiambu Hills to be protected, - The core of the Thika Highway metropolitan expansion area to be linearly structured and - The Athi River plain under the unsustainable sprawl phenomenon to be structured in a TOD approach. |
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Nairobi 2034 Sliding Horizon |
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| Nairobi had a 2030 Spatial Plan designed before 2009 and approved in 2011. In five years (2009 to 2013) many new things have happened:
- The devolution process has changed all the governance structure. - The Nairobi Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development (MoNMED) in charge of the Plan has disappeared. Responsibilities for development had shuffled elsewhere. - The Counties responsible now have their own strategies to be integrated. - KURA, the Kenya Urban Roads Agency has found elements of discordance that have to be revised. - The new TOD metropolitan structure under the Commuter Train developed by the World Bank was not foreseen in the 2030 Spatial Plan - The Orbital Circular structure proposed for the Athi River Plain is producing a sprawl effect that has to be controlled under a Reticular TOD proposal. All those elements suggest an adaptation of the 203o Spatial Plan. Most probably not a full revision, just a ‘Sliding Horizon’ adaption approach (see ‘The Art of Shaping the Metropolis’: http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/professional/products/9780071817967/ , ‘Madrid 1996 Metropolitan Plan’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Metropolitan_Plan and Metropolitan Metro-Matrix Planning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Reticular_Matrix_Planning To express the sliding horizon approach we think the 4 years lapse of 2030 to 2034 is the right way to produce the adaptation process. |
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