It is pure greed and lack of foresight among Kenyans.

Nairobi started out well. By 1963 the city was still following the master plan laid out in the 1940s. There was a plan for an orderly expansion of the city. As the documentary describes, land was set aside for fire stations, road expansion, playgrounds, markets etc.

This land that was set aside was grabbed by well connected politicians. Now there is no land left to expand roads, or build firestations or drainage channels or sewer plants.

Aside from land grabbing, property developers have been allowed to expand even in areas which are unsuitable for expansion. They used to accomplish this by simply bribing city hall officials.

Thats why Nairobi is so chaotic in terms of floods, traffic, water shortages, poor housing, crime etc. In Nairobi if your house is on fire, good luck getting the fire brigade to come over.

This is why I keep saying that tribal voting is so bogus. These politicians divide us along tribal lines and while we are on wazua and in bars calling each other names, they are busy grabbing land and taking bribes.

We should be voting for politicians who solve these issues not ones who exacerbate the problem by grabbing land.

Now we are paying for 50 years of mismanagement that we have brought on ourselves.

And Now that there is no more land to grab in the estates, the next frontier for land grabbing is schools and Universities. One of these days we will end up in a situation where 50% of schools in the city have no playing ground because it has been grabbed.

This robbery of land never happen in London, Paris or New York. I can attest to this from a NY perspective. Its not perfect but expansion has been orderly.

I never see overgrown fields. In fact I see quite the opposite in primary schools. The field is so overused and overcrowded that there is no grass growing.

You are right when you say love of plots is the issue. The obsession with plots is bad. But what is even worse is the allocation of plots to political bigwigs in areas which should have been set aside for public use. This is especially true for road reserves.

For example, When Nairobi was first built, many middle class housing estates were actually equipped with fire hydrants underground in order to fight fires. Today , other houses have been built over these fire hydrants such that city council would have no chance of locating them for maintenance or even fighting a fire.

Sad. Illegal extensions and kiosks/vibandas have killed the once beautiful estate.

There is some stupidity a black man has, that i don´t really know where it came from. A missionary in Africa told me, although i found it racist then, that black people were created to do sports while white people were created to be academically superior. Sometimes, i think he was right although it is a hard pill to take

@fullykenyan You have to be stupid to believe such nonsense. We have very many academically gifted blacks including many professors even in the US.

@alba Jomo Kenyatta is NOT to blame for the mess in nairobi. When he died in 1978 he left what the world used to call "the green city in the sun". It was a city where you could even go window shopping at tom mboya street, river road at midnight. He even left a working public transport system and buses used to run on time, even at night. He left beautiful well planned estates even in eastlands eg buru buru, umoja, donholm etc with playgrounds, social halls etc. Then Moi took over and everything went haywire.

The big question is, do you foresee this happening with these gated communities from the likes of Suraya etc?

@Hardwood i didn´t say that we blacks are stupid, what i said is that sometimes am tempted to think .we are stupid. Picture this, Whenever a proffession goes back home,where s/he grew up, people tend to come and see them ,not to ask them on how one can help them with ideas that they have gathered over the years but with Chapaa ya lunch. The last time i was home, some few men asked me for something kidogo, i gave them 5K but they were disappointed ,that i didn´t give them 50k. Surely, i just can´t give anyone that much cash, bearing in mind am not a politician. I hussled my way alone to go and study abroad. Instead of this men coming to ask me of ways their sons and daughters could also study abroad, you don´t have to be rich to study in most of the european countries,they care alot about handouts.Next time am around, i will definately not meet them.They have lost out on Information that i could give them free of charge, It is such kind of behaviour that i ask myself if we are stupid generally. If you go to Asian countries, there is almost zero crime. however, in countries with black population, one gets really scared of their life

If you have bought a house. Form a nyumba kumi kind of organization with the other home owners and create a memorandum of understanding where you have agreements on how you want your estate to be maintained. Make these rules bound by law and ensure that every new owner abides by them. No kiosks (why do Kenyans have to open so many of them) no extensions, unplanned developments eg funny looking gates etc. If you all what your property to appreciate, you need to all agree on how to maintain it. Dont let greed be the detriment of your investment.

lack of organization might symbolize stupidity, otherwise how else can you explain the lack of willingness or ability to do those simple things.
or how would you explain an inteligent black man leaving his poor country to go get accommodation and develop some foreign rich mans land

Intelligence is not about regurgitating facts,it is about applying what you have learned abd this is where most africans fail. Africans use their education to intimidate others.Some problems i see in Africa can be solved easily without employing much resources. An African is still behind regardless of their richness and educational achievement. Simple planning is a problem. You rarely find intelligent stimulating discussions on our Tv's. Our celebrities are akothee's,Prezo,Alai,Sidika,etc