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Paper short abstract:

African cities need to embed citizen-based participatory approaches into their formal top-down planning mechanisms to understand the challenges and needs of their residents and create more context-related interventions for inclusive place-making, while cities continue to evolve and grow.

Paper long abstract:

The rapid growth in population experienced in African cities is leading to significant urban growth, with consequent infrastructural development required to support it. Nairobi (Kenya) typifies many aspects of the challenges African cities face, as a post-colonial planned city with rapid urban growth rates and largely unplanned urbanisation. Consequently, Nairobi is experiencing significant stress for transport and infrastructure services, with challenges linked to increasing traffic congestion, road safety and traffic-related pollution and social inequalities.

Through a case study of the ‘Missing Link#12’ bypass development, passing through the informal settlement of Kibera, this study investigates the wider impacts on transport infrastructure development in Nairobi, and how the impacted community responds and/or adapts to such changes. The study employs a mixed-method approach comprising a survey involving 452 households of Kibera, focus group discussions and community engagement workshops. Findings indicate the development created social issues linked to evictions and displacements, creating a divisive effect within Kibera, impacting the community's social interaction and exclusion. Concerns about health due to the environmental risks of increased exposure and vulnerability to air and noise pollution also emerged strongly.

The findings stress the need in African cities for a shift in planning approaches to formalise participatory mechanisms to create more context-related interventions and inclusive place-making. Formal top-down planning often fails to consider the wider impacts of its processes upon communities. This is especially valid for informal contexts, where the concept of informal processes of alternative-substitute place-making and how communities construct their environment is overlooked by formal planning mechanisms.