Planning Issues in Multicultural Urban Communities

Africa countries are home to more than two thirds of the world's ethnic communities. Postcolonial African cities are in most instances defined by a bricolage of cultures producing a variety of spatial outcomes, some positive while others are negative. With regard to accommodating difference, many urban managers ignore these cultural facets of their communities and would rather diffuse them to simpler socioeconomic units like class, age or gender. This book explores these multicultural issues from a planning perspective using a case study of a suburb in Nairobi, Kenya. The study area is home to an influential class of Somali migrants who are the majority amongst a host of different Kenyan communities. Land and property contestations and appropriations are defined as much by capital as well as cultural grouping. Within this multicultural mix lie opportunities as well as widening inequalities that alter and reshape the social and built environment at an abnormally very high pace presenting a number of planning challenges.