An Alternative New Town Paradigm: Towards an Inclusive New Town in Kenya

Sub-Saharan Africa is often regarded as the world’s fasted urbanizing region. This implies the high demand for urban housing, infrastructure developments and services. In many cases, because the government is unable to provide solutions, it shifts the approach from “providing to enabling”, encouraging the private sector to invest in the built environment. This results in developing New Towns which tend to envision of “Africa Rising” Narrative - driven by rapid economic growth. Ideologically, New Towns should be the solution for economic and population growth, however, influenced strongly by private sector’s ambitions, governments’ visions and emerging middle-class’s desires, they tend to become an exclusive and luxurious development, excluding the majority of the population who simply cannot afford living there. This approach may lead to socio-spatial exclusion, resulting in socio-spatial segregation. This research discusses this phenomenon in the case study of Tatu City – a private New Town in Kenya that is partly built, partly under construction and partly in the design process. This research discusses the socio-spatial and governance challenges of Tatu City that have a direct and indirect impact on socio-spatial exclusion. It shows the variety of different perspectives on this issue – public sector’s, private sector’s, NGOs’ and civil society’s. Furthermore, based on theoretical and empirical research it presents the concept of Inclusive New Town and the concept of Inclusive Space In-Between as a response identifies challenges. The outcome of this research is a planning and design framework with a toolkit that was implemented in making the final design - an Alternative Vision for Tatu city.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Science