A Political Economy of Inadequate Housing in Kenya: A Case of Mathare Valley, Nairobi 1920-2022
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Date
2023
Authors
Kinyanjui, Felistus
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
TJSS
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyze the 100-year transformation of Mathare Valley settlement in
Nairobi City County of Kenya. It answers the question of how the unwanted settlement has found a
space for its residents against policy and fiscal odds to survive and provide housing for last one century
to an urban poor who were otherwise considered vagrants by municipal authorities. Mathare Valley
settlement is a shanty attributable to reliance on the use of readily available and cheap materials such
as corrugated iron sheet, carton boards, cast-off timber and plastic sheeting for putting up the structures. The questions of economic rent and ‘who would meet the cost of municipal services’ rendered to
the city in ‘unauthorized’ Mathare settlement dominated municipal and city council debates up to
the 1950s and a legacy held by contemporary political elite. Mathare is a reflection of the resilience
of the lumpen in the context of an unwelcome urbanization policy framework relegating it to unauthorized, informality, filth, disease, vagrancy and crime. Notwithstanding these challenges today
Mathare is home to 60 % of Nairobians.
Description
Artticle
Keywords
vagrancy, unauthorized, unsanitary, squalor, agency, self-help
Citation
KİNYANJUİ, F. (2023). A Political Economy of Inadequate Housing in Kenya; A Case of Mathare Valley, Nairobi. Topkapı Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 2(1), 67-90.