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THE PERFORMANCE OF URBAN (SPATIAL) PLANNING IN KENYA: A Social- Constructivist Perspective
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Title: Spatial Planning in the Face of an Informal Hyper-Growth: An Appraisal of the Kenyan Context
Researcher: Lawrence Esho,
Promoted by: Prof. Han Verschure, Prof. Jef Van Den Broeck
Key Words: Informality, Space & Urban Planning
This study emerged out of dissatisfaction with the manner in which informal urbanity is portrayed in literature and treated by policy makers and urban planning practitioners. We define the phenomenon of “informal urbanity” as an urban situation exemplified by the existence of conditions and processes (of a socio-economic, institutional and spatial nature), which are not recognized, sanctioned or controlled by any official criteria and/or mechanisms. In spatial planning terms, we use the phrase to delimitate a unique urban situation arising out of a dialectic interaction between local modes of space appropriation and existing official or “formal” guidelines for spatial development. Additionally, we assert that when these fail to rhyme, the emergent space-use patterns are often considered aberrant to spatial structures proffered by the latter, hence “informal”. Informal urbanity may take the form of any unauthorized urban activity such as; footloose commerce, fabricating and service industry invading the very core of the urban spatial grid, and extralegal housing development and irregular settlement formations at the urban periphery. In literature, two opposing discourses emerge with reference to the characterization of the phenomenon of informal urbanity. The more favourable perspective casts informal spatial practices and their associated patterns in a more positive light, and overemphasizes their role in developmental processes. On the other hand, the prevailing policy and planning regime in many Sub-Saharan African countries are mostly indisposed to sanction their import in contemporary urban contexts. Considered degenerative, the manner in which they have been handled is frequently confrontational, often with the eventual goal of eradication.
In this study, we question the above characterizations and associated treatments. Particularly, we are concerned that neither of these positions stems from a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the real essence of the informal element in African cities. Subsequently, the broad aim of the study is to reconsider the essence of urban informality in general and informal spatial practices and patterns specifically. We commenced our exploration by reviewing existing literature on informal urbanity in the Sub-Saharan African context. This was crucial for obtaining a broad overview of the research problem and understanding its contextual backdrop. Subsequently, we pondered the processes by which spaces in general, come into existence. We considered this exercise as crucial to the discernment of the nature of informal spaces and of processes involved in their construction. This exploration led to the formulation of an alternate formal theory on the construction of space[1]. Elements of this theory partly serve as the theoretical lens for the general purpose of further orienting the research process. Particularly, we consider that studying urban spaces from the perspective of those whose behaviour is central to their shaping is indispensable to a complete and balanced comprehension thereof. Anything short of this will result in a situation where there is a disconnection between the intentions of planners and urban managers and the unique aspirations of city residents to whom planning intervention is directed. Hence, the approach of the study is to corroborate these theoretical assertions by carrying out an empirical study of a specific urban context. By taking informal urbanity as a dominant space-use sub-culture in the contemporary Kenyan urban context, the ensuing fieldwork process in the city of Nakuru aims to explore and uncover the spatial meanings underpinning informal spatial practices. Additionally, we seek to discover what logics and guidance mechanisms this mode of spatial appropriation abides by. Subsequently, we will explore how these relate to processes of space formation through the production of spatial reality.
The intermediate goal of the study is to appraise the performance of spatial planning in Kenya vis-à-vis the growth of an informal urbanity. We consider this as a necessary prerequisite to the formulation of effective treatments to the informal hyper-growth that characterizes urban contexts in Kenya. Our research design involves considering, more critically, the interface between prescriptive spatial norms, appropriative spatial practice and emergent spatial structures. This, we propose is an effective approach towards understanding the relationship between urban informality, urban space and urban planning, and particularly of how the assumed efficacy of the urban master plan gradually came into contestation. The study’s eventual goal is to address the urban space allocation/appropriation mismatch that is evidently the crux of the crisis of normative regulation afflicting Kenya’s urban management framework. Based on emerging insights therefore, the study hopes to prompt a re-conceptualization and reorientation of existing formal planning norms and practices towards a more favourable characterization, and effective treatment of informal urban practices.
[1] The theoretical framework makes a case for the urban as a product of human culture, taking, as its point of departure, Christopher Alexander’s 1979 assertion that ‘….the total pattern, space and events together, is an element of people’s culture. It is invented by culture, transmitted by culture, and merely anchored in space…’
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ESHO LAWRENCE
Faculty of Engineering
Doctoral Programme in Engineering
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Project number:
3E040923
Duration of the project:
01.10.2004 - 01.10.2008
Onderzoek met eigen middelen
Nederlands
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