Paper short abstract:

This paper is a preliminary exploration of regimes of value and visions for the future proposed by China-funded urban projects for the African city of tomorrow. It explores how these are espoused, appropriated, or rather contested by the city dwellers of Nairobi.

Paper long abstract:

China-led infrastructural projects have fostered the rapid urbanisation of Sub-Saharan Africa, yet the development of African cities remains contested. In Nairobi, Kenya, China’s massive financing of housing and connective infrastructure is radically propelling new ways of planning and dwelling in the city, often at the expense of the urban poor. These mega projects involve slum clearance, urban relocation, and new forms of habitation – high-rise living and gated communities – which are transforming the social fabric of the city and furthering existing social inequality.

This paper is a preliminary exploration of regimes of value and visions for the future proposed by China-funded urban projects for the African city of tomorrow. To theorise these urban transformations the paper investigates the interplay of new practices of planning and dwelling in Nairobi. It explores China-funded urban models in Nairobi and assesses how these infrastructural projects and expertise are producing new forms of urban governance as well as how these are espoused, appropriated, or rather contested by city dwellers according to their own dwelling practices, future aspirations, and visions of development, as well as possibilities for mobilisation.