This document discusses the application of neoliberal urban strategies in shaping African cities, using Nairobi, Kenya as a case study. It begins by defining neoliberal ideology and how it differs from strategic spatial planning. Neoliberalism promotes market-led development over public interests. The document then examines how structural adjustment programs introduced neoliberalism to African cities in the 1980s. In Nairobi, neoliberal policies have led to uneven growth, increased inequality, and a fragmented cityscape divided along economic lines. The document argues that either "neopatrimonialism" or misapplication of neoliberal practices are responsible for Nairobi's poor urban governance outcomes, and calls for re-evalu

1. Reflection on Neo-Liberal Urban
strategies in shaping African
cityscapes
Case of (Mis) Application of Nairobi Neoliberal Urban
strategies

3. Table of Contents
• Introduction
– Understanding neoliberal ideology
– Neoliberalism vs strategic spatial planning
• Neoliberalism Planning: The African experience
• Case of Nairobi: Theorizing Nairobi’s Urbanization and growth
– From a colonial project to modern project-based planning
– From inherited colonial legacies to a fragmented city
• Reflections: Neo-patrimonialism or Mis-application of
neoliberal practices

4. Understanding neoliberal ideology
• Scientific approach to capitalism whereby
technical principles of market efficiency and
pragmatism are used in place of public policy
or public Interest
• Shifting from welfare state to entrepreneurial
planning

5. Understanding neoliberal ideology
Fordism Post-Fordism Neoliberalism Financialization

6. Neoliberal Urbanism
• Market systems as the main distributors of
public resources and not about equality
• Urbanization as the driving force for capital
accumulation(Lefebvre and Harvey)
• Urban expansion as absorber of surplus
accumulation

7. Capitalistic production of spaces
• Spatial fix- the art of urbanization curbing the
crisis of over-accumulation by absorbing the
reinvestment of capital surplus through
investment in the construction of the built
environment, producing new spaces for
capitalist production (Harvey 1985).

8. Neoliberalism vs strategic spatial
planning
• Making profit vs pursuing public interests
• Making of a “minimalist form of spatial regulation whose
chief purpose is to facilitate development”, Tasan and
Baeten (2012) vs planning as a tool for correcting and
avoiding market failure
• Making market logics and competitive discipline as
hegemonic assumptions
• Strategic spatial planning meant to transform the core idea
of planning to fit the increasingly neoliberal political
climate.

9. Two approaches of neoliberalism
• “Neoliberal competitive state”, rather than focusing on
expanding the welfare state
1. Roll-back- let do (laissez-faire) promote market logics
and competition in the public sector
2. Roll-out- help do (aidez-faire) facilitating the
accumulation of capital by the state actively intervening
in the market by through things that generate public
investments into infrastructure and urban development
projects in order to support market logics and
competition

10. Neoliberalism Planning: The African
experience
• Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) 1980’s
• Using urbanization for capital accumulation and
economic growth
• Urbanization as a provider for services and fixed
capital assets
• Leapfrogging through development models,
experimental urban zones and ideologies

11. Overview: SSA Splintering Urbanism
• Deeply entrenched urban morphology-social
inequalities
• Rampant direct economic violence
• Increased social exclusions
• An assemblage of spaces of exceptions(New
towns concept)/Speculative Urbanism
• Slumification of the cities

12. Case of Nairobi: Theorizing Nairobi’s
Urbanization and growth
• From a colonial project to modern project-
based planning
• From inherited colonial legacies to a
fragmented city

14. Case of Nairobi: As a colonial project
• Founded in 1899
as the Uganda
railway depot
• A city by
‘mistake’
• Rooted on
colonial
segregationist
policies

15. Case of Nairobi: Transit and Trading hub

19. From Inherited colonial legacies to fragmented
city scape
• Increased divide between the east and the western
part of the city
• Segregation shifted from racial to economic classes
• Decline of public investment infrastructure since 1986
led to uneven growth of the city
• Privatization of social housing and public spaces
• Increased social inequality
• Accentuated formal vs informal collisions/rich vs poor

22. Neopatrimonialism or Mis-application of
neoliberal practices
• Neopatrimonialism- where clientelism affects
full enforcement of neoliberal framework and
contributes to poor urban governance
• (Mis)-Application –neoliberal strategies or
global models not working for African cities
process of space production

23. Re-evaluating Southern cities development
path
• An invitation to go beyond spatial rationalities
and uncover the complex processes involved
in producing the spaces
• Investing in those user-centered initiatives to
build resilient and harmonized spaces

24. THANK YOU