6rural areas: the modern and the traditional, the fast and the slow, the
chaotic and the quiet, the dynamism and the dullness, the lights of
the city and the darkness of the rural night...
The city offers the possibility to access a variety of goods and
services that is unthinkable in the countryside, and men, migrants
since the beginning of times, just follow their natural attitude to
pursue better conditions and ameliorate their lives, ending up flowing
to the new cities of the third millennium.
Few big cities, dense agglomerations of millions of people scattered
on a surface of the globe which still remains very little populated in
most areas. The third world cities are growing faster than ever
experienced before in human history (mainly for their natural growth
rather than for rural-urban migration), but it's evident that they are
not ready to cope effectively with such impressive dynamics,
especially because their growth in terms of population is not pulled by
a correspondent economic growth, which is able to cater for the
demand of employment of their population. The result are masses of
poor invading those marginal spaces left to the unplanned and
unregulated, who try to find their own way to survive and possibly
get better by exploiting every opportunity provided by the city.
Here is the origin of the informal settlements, residential (but not
only) areas arising and developing according to modalities and
mechanisms, forms and typologies, that change from case to case
and lead to very different outcomes, though display always some
common features, which can be summarized in low-income
population, illegal and unlawful development, substandard services
and housing. Being the most common expression of urban poverty,
slums are also generally associated to a condition of marginality and
squalor, and their people often stigmatized as second class citizens
even by the institutions, which tend to deny them the enjoyment of
full rights, contributing to foster such condition of exclusion, rather
than encouraging and promoting their development. This is the
reason why slums are not just the unavoidable consequence of a
7urban expansion which is not accompanied by economic growth, but
they are also the result of political choices which have not always
been adequate to cope effectively with such phenomenon.
According to estimates, about 1 billion people lives in informal
settlements nowadays, and it's reasonable to think that the number
will increase in the next decades, given the previsions about the
demographic trends worldwide (9.5 billion people in 2050) and the
fact that the cities seems to be doomed to host the largest share of
population in the future. That's why the issue of slums has recently
entered in the global agenda for development by the United Nations,
whereby it's expressly stated in the Millennium Goals the need for
undertaking effective interventions to reduce by 100 million the
number of slum dwellers worldwide by 2020.
This research focuses on Kenya, a country in which slums are a
very common and harsh reality for millions of people, forced to live in
conditions of extreme vulnerability at the margin of the society.
Through a dissertation which becomes more and more geographically
circumscribed, the issue of the informal settlements and the related
shelter policies are investigated, moving from a global perspective
which embraces general arguments, to a more and more specific
analysis that focuses on Kenya, Nairobi and ultimately Kibera, the
largest slum in the country and one of the biggest in the entire Sub-
Saharan Africa.
Chapter 1 discusses the phenomenon of urbanization worldwide,
with a major focus on the characteristics and the forms it assumes in
the developing world. Some data are provided, and the causes and
the consequences of what seems to be a radical transformation
under-way in the patterns of development of the third world countries
are investigated.
Chapter 2 focuses on urbanization in Kenya, and on the city of
Nairobi in particular. It shows its evolution from “European city”
(during the colonial era) to its current status of “dual city”, in which
formal and informal settlements co-exist side by side, reflecting a
8dramatic inequality of a society clearly split in two, between the few
rich and the mass of the poor.
Chapter 3 provides a description of Kibera, which is the case study
of the field research presented at the end of the work. A history of
the settlement opens the chapter, paving the way to the review of its
main demographic, socio-economic and physical characteristics.
Chapter 4 presents a methodological framework for the analysis of
the interventions targeting the informal settlements, which is taken
as a benchmark to guide the just cited fieldwork. Two theoretical
perspective are described, namely the geographic one -with the
concept of territorialization- and the Sustainable Livelihood Approach.
The necessity of involving the beneficiaries in the implementation of
any project carried out by an external agent (as it is in the case of
housing projects carried out by governments) and of utilizing a
holistic and multidimensional approach both in the analysis and in the
realization of the project are stressed.
Chapter 5 focuses on the shelter-related policies which have been
adopted over the decades to cope with the issues of the informal
settlements. An historical review of the prevailing approaches
worldwide is provided, and the description of the slum upgrading as
the current best practice is given. Then the attention shifts on the
Kenyan case, and with the support of some case studies of past
housing projects countrywide the most relevant issues hindering the
success of such projects are discussed.
Chapter 6 is dedicated to the field-work conducted between June
and September 2009 in Kibera, aiming at investigating the currently
ongoing slum upgrading project carried out by the Government of
Kenya with the support of the UN-Habitat, which addresses the
village of Soweto East. The description of the field-work and its
results are presented.
Chapter 7 contains the conclusions by the author with respect to
the research.
9SLUMS AND SHELTER POLICIES IN KENYA: THE CASE OF
KIBERA, SOWETO EAST SLUM UPGRADING PROJECT
1. AN URBANIZING WORLD
As stressed by the United Nations, the year 2008 has marked a
milestone for the whole mankind: for the first time in history, in fact,
the urban population outnumbered the rural one (UN-Habitat, 2008).
This simple datum represents something more than a mere statistic:
it is the symbol of a world that is getting more and more urban, and
is going to experience a change that goes far beyond a simple
redistribution of people over the territory: it's a change in the
economic, social, political and cultural sphere.
A light can be shed over this transformation by distinguishing
between two separated but related concepts: urbanization and
urbanism (Moschetti, 1998): the former can be referred as the simple
movement of people from the rural areas to the cities, that leads to
an increase of the share of people living in a urban setting. It's a
process of geographic concentration, and can assume either the form
of the extension of a certain, already existing, area (city), or the
formation of new zones of concentration, or both the modalities. The
important thing is that in the process, the growth rate of the rural
population remains lower than the one of the urban population.
The term urbanism, instead, refers to a peculiar way of life, that is
shaped by the living in a urban environment. A significant description
of this concept is given by Writh in his essay “Urbanism as a way of
life” (Writh, 1938), where the author identifies its main characteristics
in: a complex division of labour, high social and spatial mobility,
functional dependency of the population, anonymous relationships
between the people, segmentation in the social roles, the function of
social control transferred to intermediaries, normative deviance.
Particularly in Africa, whose urban population is composed for a
large share by people from the rural areas, the city becomes a place
of cultural disorientation and secularization, which, in spite of
10
contributing to shape a new national identity based on the principles
of peace, justice and unity, has promoted the arise of a society
divided between the rich and the poor, the the elite of dominator and
the mass of dominated (Moschetti, 1998). Toffler describes the
ongoing transformation with these words: “In our lives and in our
cities a new civilization is arising (…) this new civilization implies new
family life styles: different ways of working, of loving and of living; a
new economy; new political conflicts and, moreover, the
transformation of the consciences and a new religiosity (…) The dawn
of this civilization is the only explosive event of our time” (Toffler,
from Moschetti, 1998).
Hence, urbanization means much more than just movement and
concentration of people: it is something that is going to shape a new
society and impose a new social order, spread new ideas and new
cultural models, and induce a change in the objectives and the
strategies of socio-economic development by the nations, especially
in the developing countries, which are the last to face the sudden
explosion of the phenomenon, with a pace and dimensions never
registered before in the world history (Moschetti, 1998).
Up to the first decades of the last century, the cities in the so called
third world did not experience any extraordinary upheaval with
respect to their growth. The city was the greatest ally of the
colonization, the main instrument in the hands of the Europeans to
take over and impose their authority to their colonies. The city
developed in function of the interests of the colonizers: the original
social and economic order was replaced by the rationality brought by
the whites, who imposed their vocabulary, their knowledge, their
technology and their structures, upsetting many things also at the
city level. The simplest example that can be given about this process
is the decline of most of the cities with traditional industries and the
expansion, or even the birth, of new cities on the coast, often highly
populated by Europeans (Bairoch, 1992). This is particularly relevant
for Sub-Saharan Africa, a region which, apart from some exceptions,
11
has never had a significant urban tradition, being the village the most
important typology of human agglomerate (Turco, 2002), and most of
the cities are the result of some external input, being it the Muslims
or the Europeans. This feature emerges clearly from the classification
made by O'Connor in his work “The African city”, where the author
groups the African cities in six typologies: apart from the
“indigenous” city, which represents a genuine expression of the local
culture, all the others typologies have some exogenous element.
They are: the “Islamic” city, the “colonial” city, the “European” city,
the “dual” city, and the “hybrid” city, which mixes endogenous and
exogenous elements in the same place (O'Connor, from Moschetti,
1998).
It is from the 20s of the last century that the third world cities
started growing with a rapidity never seen before, but the real
explosion of the phenomenon occurred during the period of the post-
independence, reaching the highest growth rate between the 50s and
the 60s, to slow down in relative terms starting from the last quarter
of the last century. From 1945 to 1970 the average annual urban
population's growth rate in the Third World was 4.5%, while in
Europe, in the 25-years-period of highest growth (1880-1905), it was
only 2,1%. Today, the urban growth rates have decreased even in
the Developing Countries, but still the process is unfolding
dramatically: in the 90s, the average annual growth rate of the Third
World cities was 2.5% (while the Developed World registered an
increase by 0.3%), and now they contribute to the 95% of the world
urban population growth (UN-Habitat, 2008).
It's not the rise of urbanization in the aggregated Third World what
constitutes a novelty, since it is broadly comparable to what
happened to the Western world over a century ago. What is totally
new is the increment of Third World urban population in absolute
terms, which clearly exceed any historical precedent (Kazarda &
Crenshaw, 1991).
12
The first thing to consider when it comes to describe the
phenomenon of urbanization are the determinants of the process,
that can be grouped into three main categories: the natural increase
of urban population; migrations, both intra-national and
international; the extension of the city boundaries, to annex the
surrounding areas.
Data are not much available to distinguish the contribution of the
three factors to urbanization (Fay & Opal, 1999), but it seems that it
is the natural growth of the city the main cause of its expansion,
accounting for about 60% (UNDESA, 1985), while city-ward migration
and change of the city boundaries shares evenly the remaining 40%
(Kazarda & Crenshaw, 1991). But it's noteworthy stressing the fact
that the relative weight of the three factors varies from region to
region. In particular, migration is more relevant at the early stages of
urbanization, when a country is still predominantly rural, as in the
case of many African states. As the cities enlarge their urban base,
the pattern reverses, and natural growth becomes the leading driver
of the process.
Even though it is possible to find many similarities in the
urbanization of the third world as a whole, the process has not taken
place uniformly, and big differences in the dimension and in the pace
that it is assuming in the various countries must be stressed.
First of all, the different demographic trends must be considered:
out of the 6.5 billions people in the world today, 4 billions live in Asia
only, (2.4 in China and India), 1 billion live in Africa, and the
remaining 1.5 billion is shared by America, Europe and Oceania.
Africa is registering the highest population growth rates (2.29%),
followed by Asia (1.14% - India 1.43%, China 0.63%), Latin America
(1.12%) and North America (0.96%). Last is Europe, whose
population is already stagnating. The population growth is
decelerating everywhere, but as it's easy to foresee, it will continue
to grow dramatically, and by 2050 we expect to have more than 9
billions people in the world, out of which about 5.4 billions will live in
13
Asia and 2 billions in Africa only. This patterns are explained by the
different forms that the demographic transition has assumed in the
Developing countries with respect to the Developed ones: while in the
former the birth rates remain still very high, mainly for socio-
economic and cultural factors, and the death rates are quite low (the
second phase of the demographic transition started in the 1950s), in
the latter the transition has come to an end in which birth and death
rates are very low and close to each other, leading to a stagnant
population (Todaro and Smith, 2003).
According to Bairoch, one of the most important factors that has
favoured the natural growth of urban population in the Developing
World is the introduction of the Western medicine, that has
contributed to lower drastically the mortality rate in the city,
contrarily to what happened to the cities in Europe in the XIX
century. Here, the high mortality rates counterbalanced the growth
related to the rural-urban migration, keeping the rates of
urbanization of the western cities lower than what is currently
happening in the rest of the world (Bairoch, 1992).
The second element to consider with respect to the global trends is
the rural-urban pattern, that is, how the population is split between
the rural and the urban areas. Again, Asia and Africa are the only
regions still predominantly rural: while Latin America experienced the
urban transition in the 1960s, and by now it has reached the the
same figures of the Developed World -with about 78% of its
population living in cities- Asia and Africa shows urbanization rates
equal to 42% and 39% respectively. But if the current trends
continue, both the continents are expected to experience the urban
transition in few decades, so that by 2050, 70% of the world
population will live in cities.
By looking at the African case, it's interesting to observe the
increase in the number of millionaire cities: from 1950, when only
two cities counted more than 1 million people, urbanization has
14
grown exponentially, and in 2010 the millionaire cities will be 44, with
an average size of 3.3 millions inhabitants each.
Urbanization growth rates are diminishing all over the world,
especially for the largest cities, indicating that their growth is
becoming more manageable (UN-Habitat, 2008). Yet they remain still
positive and high in Africa (3.31%) and Asia (2.46%), discrete for
Latin America (1.71%) and North America (1.31%), and low for
Europe (0.21%). in the 1990s, 218 cities in the Developing World
(17% of the total), including Shanghai, Beijing, Riyadh, Addis Ababa,
Nairobi, Lagos and Khartoum experienced very high growth rates
(4% or more), while 36% experienced growth rates between 2% and
4% annually. On the contrary, half of the cities in the Developed
World registered annual growth rates inferior to 1%, and 40% of
them registered negative rates, suffering a population loss (UN-
Habitat, 2008).
It's interesting also to take a look to this figure for the rural areas:
what emerges immediately is that the rural population is stagnant or
declining all over the world, with the only exception of Africa, where it
still registers a growth rate of 1.58%*.
Hence, the Third World seems to be determined to follow frantically
the trajectory of the First World, in a furious race towards the city, at
least according to the quantitative raw data just presented. But if we
look at urbanization in qualitative terms, it is absolutely another
story.
1.1 PECULIARITY OF URBANIZATION IN THE THIRD WORLD
The process of urbanization seems to be a constant in history, but
it became something doomed to shape a brand new world only after
the industrial revolution, when the city became synonymous of
modernity and the engine of the economic growth for the entire
western world. The increase of productivity in the industrial sector
*Data are taken from the United Nations Population Division Database
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