PROF. OLIMA WASHINGTON H. ASEMBO

Kenya has been faced with challenges of planning, development and management of its urban residential neighbourhoods. Any residential neighbourhood should have a well-defined spatial and social entity so as to give meaning to urban environment. In Nairobi, for instance, the largest part of urban land is zoned for residential areas, giving the city its image and identity. Of the total residential land in Nairobi, 5 percent comprises of informal settlements accommodating about 70 percent of Nairobi’s over 3 million population. The rest of the land, representing 95 percent is home to about 30 percent of the urban population, is developed with housing of different design and categories. The rot in Nairobi as in other towns in Kenya is clearly a case of ineptitude and negligence of local authorities entrusted with responsibilities of ensuring order. Due to the failure by the local authorities and other relevant government agencies, residents have taken it upon themselves to participate in the neighbourhood planning, development and management. The change of land uses is also causing the city to sprawl and expand in its periphery leading to the emergence of more suburban residential areas. The paper adopted a case study methodological approach by focusing on selected residential neighbourhood within the City of Nairobi to undertake an in-depth analysis. The main objective of this paper is to assess the response and nature of participation of neighbourhood residents in the activities that are geared towards improving the quality of the neighbourhoods. The issues of revitalization of decayed neighbourhoods are highlighted. The findings form a sound basis for policy intervention by examining the different intervention strategies.

Particularly during the last decade, there has been a clear recognition of the importance of urban land management in helping to alleviate urban poverty in the developing countries. It is argued that, managing the economic aspects of urban poverty has to aim at reforming regulations and codes that limit the access of the poor to urban land. This paper analyses the urban land management practice in Kenya. The analysis reveals that urban land management practice in Kenya has encouraged the politically, economically or socially powerful members of the society or those in authority to participate keenly in land acquisition and development. The result has been a situation of confusion and power struggles in the whole process of land delivery. The problems with urban land administration identified included inefficiencies in the public land allocation procedures, double and multiple plot allocations, irregular land allocations commonly referred to as land grabbing, re-allocation of plots, and land speculation and sale of plots. Some suggestions are made as to how the process can be improved in future. It is recommended that a policy framework and strategy for an improved urban land administration be instituted. This calls for an urgent need to formulate and implement both an appropriate and efficient land administration system as well as modernization of land information system.

The relationship between urbanization and provision of leisure facilities in developing countries is examined, taking Nairobi, Kenya, as a case study. The growth of urban areas in Kenya has been phenomenal and there has been a widespread feeling that the performance of the agencies with regard to the provision and maintenance of recreational facilities has been below par. Reasons for the deficiency of recreational facilities in Nairobi include the lack of a recreation policy, uncontrollable high population growth rate, increasing urbanization and financial hardship by the local authority.

The Kenya Government has over a number of years pursued policies geared towards the promotion of secondary towns. Included in this strategy is the achievement of an orderly and coordinated urban land development. However, experience from these towns indicates that, planned land development has encountered a lot of bottlenecks particularly in relation to the institution of private ownership of land. This paper traces the land tenure systems that have existed in the Kenya’s secondary towns. In general, the paper examines the effects of land tenure forms on the provision of housing and the related infrastructure. The effects of existing land tenure identified include influence on housing development, influence on planned land development, cloudiness of titles, hoarding and speculation, insecurity, inflexibility and inequity. The paper concludes by making suggestions based on the observed bottlenecks that should be considered to encourage and promote systematic urban land development in secondary towns.