The Upper Hill landscape has changed
significantly over the past ten years. Where there were old colonial
timber bungalows, there are skyscrapers. The colonial land adjudication
here factored in the low population density and provided for appropriate
infrastructure.
Today we are using the same
demarcations to develop high-rise buildings with access gates in the
same spot where those for the bungalows were. My question to the city
fathers is: Is it too difficult to apply the concept of smart cities to
redevelop our city?
A 2009 study at the University of
Amsterdam by Caragliu and others defined "smart cities" as investments
in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure,
fuelling sustainable economic development and a high quality of life,
with wise management of natural resources through participatory action
and engagement.
READ: Smart Cities in Europe, by Caragliu et al. (external link)
The
concept of smart cities, therefore, is a strategic device that
encompasses modern urban production factors in a common framework and
highlights the growing importance of ICTs, social and environmental
capital in describing the competitiveness of cities.
GATED MENTALITY
Several
other studies concur that for a city to develop a sustainable living,
it must build into its planning the following smart components:
governance, mobility, economy, environment, people and attitude towards
living.
Sustainable Living Framework. GRAPHICS | BITANGE NDEMO
It
can therefore be argued that none of the components stated above have
been considered in the redevelopment of Upper Hill. Smart people should
have thought about integrated infrastructure development, mixed use
development to minimize use of motor vehicles, redesigning of the road
network beyond existing infrastructure to fit into the high-density
population that is coming up, walkability of the new development, as
well as the scarcity of land and using it sparingly.
Upper
Hill looks like no other urban development globally. Its gated
mentality denies it modern city development with shops, restaurants and
other amenities that create a smart city. It is simply a hodgepodge of
higgledy-piggledy that will give us more problems in the future than
good.
We have resigned ourselves to a mediocre
environment polluted by greedy transportation owners who see no reason
to service their vehicles and ensure environmentally acceptable emission
levels. This perhaps explains the high incidences of cancer and
respiratory diseases that are draining our national health-care budget.
BURNING VALUABLE FUEL
The Business Daily article
of July 29, 2014, notes that respiratory ailments take a toll on
household spending. Victor Juma, citing a Resolution Health study, says
flu, coughs and tuberculosis ate up 19 per cent of the Sh1.6 billion the
company spent on medical bills last year.
Inadequate
public health education on personal and community responsibility all add
up to the rising medical challenge, said Peter Nduati of Resolution
Health, an insurance company.
Focus on preventive
health care will free up more resources into other key sectors of the
economy. An IBM study on smart cities for Nairobi showed that traffic
jams as a result of poor planning leading up to burning up valuable
fuel, cost as much as Sh50 to 100 million per day, a resource that
should be used in the productive sectors of the economy. It costs even
more when man-hours lost in the traffic jams are factored in.
The term smart economy is becoming common. A report, Building Ireland’s Smart Economy: 2009-2014, defines
it as "combining the successful elements of the enterprise economy and
the innovation or ‘ideas’ economy while promoting a high-quality
environment, improving energy security and promoting social cohesion.
The most successful economies of the future will be those that can
achieve this combination of attributes."
DOWNLOAD: Building Ireland’s smart economy
DOWNLOAD: A Vision of a Smarter City
The
pace at which we are urbanizing is, for sure, going to be a big
challenge in the days to come. Urban population by conservative UN
estimates will more than double by 2050, accounting for 70 per cent of
the world’s population.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Undeniably,
transportation systems will be impacted, swelling congestion,
threatening safety, delaying commuters, and damaging the environment.
Planners must therefore look to solving current and anticipated
challenges, through mobility solutions for integrated city management,
greater operational efficiency and smart information.
In
terms of smart governance, the focus here is more about the future of
public services, largely about greater efficiency, participation and
leadership, mobile working and continuous improvement through
innovation. In the past, we have been more reactive to issues of
governance. Citizens today demand services through many channels
including social media.
The penetration of mobile
phones comes with greater opportunity for service providers to leverage
the mobile platform to deliver some of the services. There is nothing
that stops Kenya from being the next generation country since we have
the ICT infrastructure in place and the benefits of the youth.
Our
individual decisions lead to collective benefits when we choose smart
living, where we all understand being resource-efficient as a basis of
sustaining our daily lives and practices. In this I hope that we shall
seek to conserve energy, water, waste and biodiversity. We must look for
simpler ways of protecting the environment, save money and make our
homes safer to live in.
Solid waste, for example, is a
major problem not just for Nairobi but the entire country, yet from
solid waste we can generate energy. But for this to happen, we must
individually be responsible for our waste and seek to dispose of it in a
prudent manner.
WASTING YOUR OWN MONEY
This
is not just a story for Upper Hill. It is our story and about our lack
of planning and enforcement of the law. While Google Earth shows Beirut
as a much calmer and organized city, even after some bombing, Kisii
Town, viewed aerially and at its best, looks like a tornado swept
through it and left some buildings standing. This is largely due to
planning. It will require more "smarter cities" consultants than Beirut
would need. Several other towns in Kenya viewed aerially look worse than
Mogadishu. Poverty aside, we can at least plan.
As for
Upper Hill, we all have a stake in it because if you are stuck there in
a jam, it is your money that you are wasting. There is need to press
for greater public participation in planning. It is imperative that we
have the general plan and how it will eventually look when built up. For
now we are just expanding roads that should have been expanded 10 years
ago but cannot withstand the traffic for the next 10 years.
The
entire place needs re-planning to create new access roads befitting the
high-density population that is building up. It beats logic to build
skyscrapers along the roads that were meant for single household
bungalows. Land is a finite resource that is already expensive,
therefore we need every aspect of infrastructure well thought about for
years to come.
As former US President Dwight D.
Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans
are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
Dr
Ndemo is a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi's Business
School, Lower Kabete campus. He is a former permanent secretary in the
Ministry of Information and Communication. Twitter:@bantigito
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