A case study of moving towards Inclusive Urbanism
The Eastlands estates are several neighborhoods of colonial-era housing in the east of Nairobi, built by the British colonial government between the 1920s and 1960s to provide affordable housing for Africans in Kenya’s rapidly growing capital city. Although today they are dilapidated and in disrepair, tens of thousands of Nairobians still call them home.
One of the targeted estates, Kaloleni, is the focus of our Inclusive Urbanism project where we have been exploring stakeholder and residents’ responses to this looming threat of redevelopment while demonstrating a participatory and integrated approach to urban planning and regeneration with the objective of showcasing a viable business case for affordable housing.
The Kaloleni project aims to provide professionals, students and residents engaged in urban planning and development with the critical tools to design and manage an integrated provision of both housing and urban systems.
Its goals are premised on the lack of scalar integration and participatory planning in the implementation of large-scale and capital-intensive urban regeneration projects in Kenya. Indeed, the implementation in the context of rapid growth, lack of proper regulation and management, consolidated self-building practices and increasing inequality holds innumerable threats to equitable urban development.
Co-producing inclusive urbanism for sustainable city transformation is therefore an essential skill for engendering meaningful social and physical change.
For the Kaloleni project DASUDA is working with: Nairobi City County, University of Nairobi, KERA (Kaloleni Estate Residence Association), University of Groningen (MA Pauline Bezemer).
