Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Article Title:
Policies and Strategies for Tackling Informal Settlements; Lessons for Kenya
by Job K Ngetich, Grephas P Opata,Ben Mwasi, John AF Obiri,Nathan K. Meli

Abstract:
The challenge facing planners today is how to create sustainable cities as the number of people living in cities continue to grow at approximately twice the rate of that in the rural areas. It is projected that the global city population will increase to 5.34 billion by the year 2025, thus exerting greater pressure on the natural environment than ever before. Kenya is rapidly urbanizing at the rate of 4% per annum and is projected to be a predominantly urban country by 2033.Currently; about 30 percent of the population live in urban areas. Every year more than 250,000 Kenyans are moving to cities and former rural areas are becoming increasingly urban (World Bank, 2014).Rapid Urbanization has brought into fore the growing phenomenon of slums. It is estimated that 862.5 million (24%) urban dwellers live in slums. One out of two people in the world live in urban areas, while one out of four people in the urban areas live in slums (IHS, 2013).Every city in Kenya has a slum with Kibera slum in Nairobi being one of the largest. Despite existence of numerous international and local policy instruments including the Millennium Development Goal 7 Target 11, Cities without slums programmes,Urban Areas and Cities Act 2011;Physical Planning Act Chapter 286;and Constitutional and land reforms, mushrooming up of slums continues unabated. This paper identifies causes of informality and recommends both curative and preventative strategies for dealing with slums including; land readjustment, expropriation, inclusionary zoning, Community land trusts, land sharing, land and utilities and street led upgrading.

Keywords: urbanization; sustainable cities, slums and informal settlements

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