No Place like Home in a New City : Anti-Urbanism and Life in Nairobi

Abstract

Nairobi, known as the Green City in the Sun, has taken shape through anti-urban ideologies that insist that the city cannot be home for most residents. Based on decades of experience in rapidly changing Nairobi, No Place Like Home in a New City traverses rivers, cemeteries, parks, railways, housing estates, roads, and dancehalls to explore how policies of anti-urbanism manifest across time and space, shaping how people live in Nairobi. With deeply personal insights, Bettina Ng’weno highlights how people contest anti-urbanism through their insistence on building life in the city, even in the current dynamic of ubiquitous demolition and reconstruction. Through quotidian practices and creative resistance, they imagine alternatives to displacement, create belonging, and build new urban futures. “Combining the intellectual and the emotive in the best traditions of ethnographic analysis, Ng’weno compels us not only to ‘see’ what the struggle for belonging in the city entails but also to ‘feel’ it.” — Wale Adebanwi, author of How to Become a Big Man in Africa “A truly multidisciplinary work that weaves personal experiences, colonial history, and post-colonial city planning.” — Awet Weldemichael, author of Third World Colonialism and Strategies of Liberation “With implications for cities around the world, this book deserves a wide audience.” — Jeremy Prestholdt, author of Domesticating the World “Anti-urbanism has never been written about in such a personal, thoughtful, and vivid manner.” — Kenda Mutongi, author of Matatu