By JOSEPH MAGUTTPosted Tuesday, November 10 2009 at 17:44
NAIROBI CITY HAS BEEN IN decline for some considerable period, mainly due to poor attention and lack of consistency in planning. Its infrastructure is choked and gridlocked. Fifty years from now the city may suffer critical implosion, if drastic measures are not taken. The current infrastructure cannot absorb the high population growth, nor is there sufficient room for modern planning that will serve the next generation. Until 1926, Nairobi operated on ad hoc city plans. The 1948 Nairobi masterplan, although with its own limitations, was a seminal approach to proper organisation of the fledgling urban centre.
However, a more focused blueprint was the 1973 Nairobi Metropolitan Growth Strategy, which was ignored until it expired in 2000. IT IS SAD THAT A CITY SUCH AS KUALA Lumpur in Malaysia, which borrowed from this masterplan is now the pride of South East Asia, yet Nairobi is apparently stuck in a rut with rundown infrastructure, and an albatross in the name of the biggest slum in Africa.
The new Nairobi Metropolitan Region under the stewardship of the Nairobi Metropolitan ministry is the latest attempt to redesign, modernise and expand the city. The masterplan, which is designed to subsume several local authorities bordering the city, envisages creating 13 independent zones, spanning 3,000 square kilometres. The vision is commendable and ambitious but it is one that will not provide a well-planned or futuristic city.
It is worth noting that, besides providing a congenial environment for quality life, properly planned cities attract the best companies globally, and are thus a catalyst for investment. To this end, I feel there is a need to design and build a city that will serve Kenyans for the next 1,000 years.
This is a hard choice that we must make as a country.
My proposal is that the capital city should be located between Losai National Reserve and Shaba National reserve – specifically at Golja, North of Isiolo. This is because Nairobi, besides having declined irrevocably is not geographically located at the real centre of the country. It does not enjoy or project the persona of “neutrality” and hence there is need for a geographically neutral location that will allay regional jealousies that may jeopardise national unity. A city located in the most central location of Kenya will contribute to ethnic harmony and bring about regional equi-distance in terms of accessibility.
Besides, Nairobi carries a lingering colonial tag having been used by the British colonial administration as a seat to perpetuate its brutal tyranny in Kenya and the region at large. This poignant reality galls a new generation that yearns to identify with anything that invokes national pride.
The need to build a new city in the Golja region is also inspired by the devolution agenda, as this will be amenable to the policy of equitable distribution of national resources. This will contribute to the development of northern Kenya and help to ease the current disproportionate urban population in Kenya.
IT IS INSTRUCTIVE THAT MANY CITIES have been built to serve the emerging interests of individual countries. Examples include Brasilia in Brazil), Abuja in Nigeria, Dodoma in Tanzania, Islamabad in Pakistan, Gaborone in Botswana, and Lilongwe in Malawi. Taiwan is now considering building the next generation city in its central hinterland.
To begin with, the new city can, in the initial stages, serve as the seat of government through the relocation of administrative functions; eventually it can become the country’s commercial capital. The National Assembly and all key government administrative arms should constitute the initial phase of relocation.
In the face of the many challenges facing the country, this proposal may sound woolly but this mental orientation is necessary. Big ideas sometimes sound foggy and ludicrous.
Mr Magutt is a political scientist and founder of Big Ideas International, a think-tank in Nairobi. (jmagoott@yahoo.com)
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