The City Makers of Nairobi

An African Urban History

Anders Ese, Kristin Ese

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000096774
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The City Makers of Nairobi re-examines the history of the urban development of Nairobi in the colonial period. Although Nairobi was a colonial construct with lasting negative repercussions, the African population's impact on its history and development is often overlooked. This book shows how Africans took an active part in making use of the city and creating it, and how they were far from being subjects in the development of a European colonial city.

This re-interpretation of Nairobi's history suggests that the post-colonial city is the result of more than unjust and segregative colonial planning. Merging historical documentation with extensive contemporary urban theory, this book provides in-depth knowledge of the key historical roles played by locals in the development of their city. It argues that the idea of agency, a popular inroad to urban development today, is not a current phenomenon but one that has always existed with its many social, spatial, and physical ramifications.

This is an ideal read for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students studying the history of urban development and theories, providing an in-depth case study for reference. The City Makers of Nairobi broaches interdisciplinary themes important to urban planners, social scientists, historians, and those working with popular settlements in cities across the world.

Part I

The Muslim impact on Nairobi 1899–1940

In this book we examine the creation of Nairobi from African perspectives. To understand those African perspectives, we harken back to the region’s early socio-political landscape, prior to the laying of the railway track, prior to the stopover that would become a bustling city. This was a region already accustomed to change; socially, culturally, economically, and politically. The Kikuyu, Maasai, and Kamba peoples that lived in the region had not existed in that spot forever. Their presence and cultures were the product of century-long migratory shifts; processes that led to changes in relations and networks and created new political and social systems. Stabilising by the early 1800s, we can say, in a broad historical sense, that these societies existed in the way most societies did; in a continuing quest to control resources and provide stability and longevity for their respective groups, their way of living, their outlook on the world. And in that broad history, Swahili, Arab, and even European presence existed for decades. For a region prone to geographic and cultural shifts, the idea of “outside” presence was a relative term and did little to alter the overall dynamics for the region and its peoples. And yet it did.

There was a long track record of British exploitation of inland Africa by the turn of the 19th century. But the creation of urban structures in the region became a physical iteration of something new: a strategic shift. Over time, the inland became more than just a space from which to draw resources. With the establishment of Nairobi and other towns, the inland slowly shifted, becoming a place in the colonial imagination. Nairobi and the White Highlands became a prize; geographic objects that were assets in themselves, just as much as the resources that could be drawn from them.

So while African societies in the region were accustomed to social, political, and cultural dynamics and changes, the city as an object can be said to have represented something new. But with the upheavals that marred the region in the late 1890s, and with the inherent cultural and social flexibility of the peoples of the region, it can be argued that African inland societies took on the city as theirs – as an opportunity and a way forward.

But this is not a tale of two cities: the European and the inland African. It is a tale of one city, represented through a multitude of voices and narratives; European, multiple regional ones in addition to those from further afield such as the Somali and Sudanese,¹ and a variation of Asian ones representing anything from workers on the railways to rich merchants. Paramount among these is the Swahili narrative. The coastal region from where the Swahili came was dominated by a network of towns, connected by centuries-old trade routes that merged Arabic and Asian cultural and social practices with African coastal ones. A highly composite group, the Swahili also sought to secure their practices and assets. Their position in Nairobi and their contributions to city making need to be viewed in light of this. Swahili ex-servicemen established centrally located, long-standing, and structured settlements of importance to the development of Nairobi and African urban identities. Most people came to live here. Class-based systems and dynamic power relations were important internally and externally to these communities. This contributed to African groups and individuals seizing opportunities in the city pertaining to position, property, land ownership, commercial practices, and careers. “The transformation of Kenya from a polyglot of strangers into a coherent state was the work of force,” write B. A. Ogot and W. R. Ochieng’.² The same can be said of the transformation of Nairobi. But in a city created by the overlays of various cultures, all coming from “the outside” and seeking to secure a future foundation, who’s force was it? And over whom? It is to these events that we now will turn, starting with the impact of Muslim-led city making at the very end of the previous century.

1 The first African settlements in Nairobi

Transformation and adaption to new realities

Introduction

Our goal in this chapter is to make clear African urban spatial patterns in Nairobi emerging before the 1920s. The African population in Nairobi is generally described as a transitory workforce; a floating, poor, rural population, forced to Nairobi by the European farming economy. But the people that came to Nairobi were far more composite, developing substantial spatial structures and housing developments. Why did Nairobi become a centre for African establishment, and what kind of possibilities were provided for the various groups that came to settle in the fledgling town?

The melting pot

Nairobi never existed before 1899. There was no vision or detailed plan guiding its development. The Uganda Railway decided it would be a suitable place for a depot and, later, for its headquarters. The building of the railway (1895–1901) created an important link between the interior and urban power centres on the Swahili Coast. The railroad became a spine for a capitalist production; an economy that forced itself upon the peoples of the area. From around 1900, Nairobi established itself as the new power centre in the British East Africa Protectorate (BEAP), from where a capitalist economy was spread to all of East Africa. The headquarters moved from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1905, and Nairobi became the capital in 1907.³

From 1899 the railway company occupied the southern end of town, while the rest was settled by the British Administration with government barracks, police, a jail and the East African Rifles.⁴ A road was built between the railway station and the government administration.

One would be hard pressed to call Nairobi a town, much less a city, in these first years. With its tin shacks scattered between the railway and the government barracks, it looked more like a small, dusty settlement from a Western movie. Still, it attracted thousands of people; Africans, Europeans, South Africans, and Asians alike. Where Maasai and Kikuyu people previously herded their cattle, where wildlife roamed, and where war parties and women traders once passed – a new and alien settlement emerged, bordering the Southern Kikuyu forest. Nairobi became a melting pot for three races, Africans, Asians, and Europeans; the makings of a cosmopolitan trans-ethnic culture. In 1906 the African population within and close to the town had surpassed 7,000, in addition to the approximately 2,000 KAR stationed in Kibera.⁵ Asians numbered around 3,600 and there were close to 640 Europeans and Eurasians.⁶ The Europeans made a palpable mark on the landscape in these first 20 years. However, this could not have happened without African and Asian residents who built the railway, cleared the bush, and constructed roads and buildings – while providing the food and goods needed to sustain the increasing population.

The narrative of Nairobi is mostly depicted as a “white” story. But denying African spatial development in this narrative is to render invisible Africans as individuals and as groups. Africans took an active part in the exploitation of physical, political, economic, and social space in Nairobi. Africans were comprised of diverse and non-singular groups, which contributed profoundly to urban diversity and created definite African residential and occupational patterns. They created vital urban communities in interaction with one another and the other peoples living in town.

During its first years Nairobi was never meant to be a colonial capital, let alone a metropolis. It was simply to function as a local headquarters for the railways and as a provincial headquarters for the BEAP. As the town had no grand future, planning was an inconsequential matter, and the town was simply divided between the railways and the BEAP. Land was sold to anyone with money. This resulted in moneyed Asians buying up over two-thirds of Nairobi’s commercial business quarters. Large tracts of land outside the town perimeter were also bought up by Asian, South African, and European speculators. African agricultural production in Nairobi’s hinterland supplied the town with much-needed food. Numerous people moved to and from the city every day to sell fruits and vegetables in the Asian and African markets in town. An important and somewhat overlooked feature of Nairobi’s structural build up was that none of the races could manage by themselves. There existed a reciprocal dependency between groups and across racial divides. This opened up opportunities for African settlements and an African urban class of people.

Areas of settlement. Sketch map of the four most likely places to settle for Africans moving to Nairobi between 1906–1921, seen in relation to other places of development and importance in and around town.

(Sketch map: the authors, 2019.)

Distances. Sketch map of approximate aerial distances from the city centre (the Bazaar) to various villages in Ngara and other landmarks in the period 1906–1921.

(Sketch map: the authors, 2019.)

Population numbers. Aggregation of African, Asian, European and other (Somali, Sudanese) populations between 1906–1921. As the numbers provided are uncertain, the aggregated graph in the background helps us see tendencies in population developments. The pie charts highlight the percentages that the different groups represented in 1906, 1909, 1911, and 1921. Note the high percentage of African populations throughout the period.

(Diagram: the authors, 2019.)

The establishment of African space in Nairobi

In 1909 the African population in Nairobi was approximately 9,500. By 1911 it had increased slowly to over 10,000.⁷ In this early period the African population was in no way a stable population. Large numbers of Africans came to Nairobi to live and work, and with such an influx of inhabitants, living and housing patterns emerged that became important to the urban development of Nairobi. In other texts about Nairobi, African housing areas are often described as haphazard and temporary or in flux. This ties in with early descriptions of African villages in and around Nairobi as being slums – inextricably linking the process of African urbanisation to something random, illegal, and unwanted. These early labels, and subsequent descriptions, rely on a language laden with political and social meaning. So, what can really be said about the characteristi...