Human geographies of the rural-urban fringe: Social dynamics of land development in the Nairobi rural-urban fringe, Kenya
type: CreativeWork
description: The process of urbanization is one of the most important dimensions of economic, social and physical change. It is almost a truism that the planet’s future is an urban one and that the largest and fastest growing cities are primarily in developing countries. As in other parts of the developing world, the urban population in Africa is expected to double by 2025, Kenya is no exception. Rapid urban population growth means an increasing demand for urban land. This land is not available within cities, but in the rural-urban fringes, for various reasons. The conversion of agricultural land to residential uses in these areas is leading to rapid transformations of this space. This thesis is motivated by a concern for the quality of life and environment in the Nairobi rural-urban fringe, specifically Town Council of Karuri (TCK). This is because it is a place where generic problems associated with urban growth (such as pollution, social dislocation, land use conflicts, loss of agricultural land) are increasingly becoming evident and manifest. This thesis thus examines the dynamics of land use change in the TCK with the aim of building an understanding of the drivers of agricultural land conversions, implications of resulting land use changes, and the related response mechanisms to the changes. The leading question that guided the line of enquiry and discussion is: why is agriculture being squeezed out by non-agricultural land uses in the Nairobi rural-urban fringe? To understand land use dynamics it was necessary to frame landholders and their decision-making environments in ‘situated contexts’. However literature, personal experience and interviews, indicated that forces driving or influencing land conversions interact and operate at varying scales and in an interrelated manner. With this understanding the study adopted an approach that embraced a nested set of scales, an approach that enabled an understanding of the complex local and macro forces and their localized conseq…
abstract: The process of urbanization is one of the most important dimensions of economic, social and physical change. It is almost a truism that the planet’s future is an urban one and that the largest and fastest growing cities are primarily in developing countries. As in other parts of the developing world, the urban population in Africa is expected to double by 2025, Kenya is no exception. Rapid urban population growth means an increasing demand for urban land. This land is not available within cities, but in the rural-urban fringes, for various reasons. The conversion of agricultural land to residential uses in these areas is leading to rapid transformations of this space. This thesis is motivated by a concern for the quality of life and environment in the Nairobi rural-urban fringe, specifically Town Council of Karuri (TCK). This is because it is a place where generic problems associated with urban growth (such as pollution, social dislocation, land use conflicts, loss of agricultural land) are increasingly becoming evident and manifest. This thesis thus examines the dynamics of land use change in the TCK with the aim of building an understanding of the drivers of agricultural land conversions, implications of resulting land use changes, and the related response mechanisms to the changes. The leading question that guided the line of enquiry and discussion is: why is agriculture being squeezed out by non-agricultural land uses in the Nairobi rural-urban fringe? To understand land use dynamics it was necessary to frame landholders and their decision-making environments in ‘situated contexts’. However literature, personal experience and interviews, indicated that forces driving or influencing land conversions interact and operate at varying scales and in an interrelated manner. With this understanding the study adopted an approach that embraced a nested set of scales, an approach that enabled an understanding of the complex local and macro forces and their localized conseq…
author: Thuo, Aggrey Daniel Maina
keywords: rural-urban fringe, land development, urban planning, social dynamics, qualitative methods, hybridity
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/c572b195-b094-4ec2-acf8-bb0811ca8289/download
date published: 2010
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:21Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Waikato