MK254
JF-Expert Member
- May 11, 2013
- 32,408
- 50,809
I really loved Nairobi of the mid 70s and to mid 80s...I was a child to mid teenager(God I am old!)...We first lived in Upperhill (near Matumbato Rd) then moved to Kileleshwa...I remember it took only 25 minutes from Upperhill to City Centre..I remember Dad taking us to Uhuru Park or sometimes we would hang around the Railway Golf Club while he played..I remember running with my friends, after the ice cream man who came through the estate on Saturday...I had my 1 shilling to buy my favorite pineapple flavored one....I remember green grass and smell of trees...The City functioned from the street lights to drainage,roads were swept and Kanjo guys tended the shrubbery and generally kept things nice and clean...There were garbage collectors who collected trash (from your pipa) every week.This was a free service...Those were the golden good old days...The weather was beautiful..
Fast forward to today...I took my my young adult children to see these places I keep telling them about. That was last year...While the places I grew up are still pretty decent the City itself has lost its glory..I cannot drive in the CBD...The traffic is outrageous...It is a shame because Nairobi was cleaner and more developed than Singapore in late 70s and 80s...Nairobi was like being in Europe(we visited my aunt in UK during the same time and we didn’t see a lot of difference apart from the underground train)
I guess I am just a nostalgic middle aged man...I now see why Western countries have strict rules on building permissions...All is not lost with a good City Planner things can turn around...Maybe if PSVs could be banned from the CBD then that could help.
I miss the old Nairobi....
Duh! Kumbe you're an old timer, you hanged in Nairobi in mid 70s???
The thing is, we need to invest heavily on devolution and create more Nairobis, am seriously considering migrating to some other upcoming town or city. Good thing is my kind of work allows me to live in anywhere without any inconvenience.
Machakos and Nakuru are top on my list.