Plan well to create liveable communes

There have been famous slogans and hashtags about how Kenyans express their love for their country, especially when our sports people excel in competitions. This hasn’t expressly been revealed by urban experts, either through confession or radical love for the places, people, communities and the country they plan for.

Love can be expressed by feeding the city with the nutritious food it craves rather than starve it. This can be through unfolding prospects such as creation of wealth or employment opportunities, recreation and having a feel of being at home when in a state of solitude and distress. Cities can love us back if we expressed our love and commitment through the way we plan and prepare for their tomorrow to cater for their growth, efficiency and grandeur. 

Urban planning becomes inevitable as a reward to the current and future generations to show our love and, therefore, it becomes a question of when and not if, coupled with resource allocation whose determination usually requires political will and tactics.

As one of the best Harvard economists, Ed Glaeser, said, economics offers tactics but not strategy. Therefore, urban planners become the key people to love such cities when nobody else can or is able to, especially to the neglected and forgotten areas at the blink of collapse desperate for services. 

Such efforts would restore the dignity and sanity of the city; urban planners thus become the advocates for and voice of the marginalised and ensuring equity across all social classes. Many passionate urban dwellers fall in love with urban areas as they open their eyes with the kind of richness and diversity they possess and potentials which would overfill their cup with their creativity and hard work. 

Economic and social disruption

It is every planner’s joy and pursuit for happiness to see urban success with high level of independence and multiple creativity with traders getting their hard-earned private wealth that many struggle to achieve using their creative hands and brains, which some Marxists refer to as disaster capitalists who never see any good other than money.

The Covid-19 pandemic delivered a devastating economic and social disruption and became a major blow during lockdown, closures and restrictions to city dwellers, which was a great disappointment for the city they loved being stolen from them or, it appeared, it decided to love to hate them. This led to inconveniences in travel, strain on facilities, loss of employment leading to stress and depression. 

That exposed the urban areas which were deserted from the booming businesses and became ‘ghost towns’, which has led to the sudden death of many urban areas and cities. In that period, many urban dwellers underwent stress, depression due to the state of solitude, loss of income and low economy.

Urban planning can mitigate this state of solitude through tactics, innovations and strategies such as conversion of spaces which were rarely used for social events, which, in turn, would earn a living for the city dwellers.

Mr Abuya is a registered urban planner and manager. [email protected]