Urbanization in Kenya and perhaps in sub-Saharan Africa can be described as prescriptive rather than organic. We posit that this prescriptive urbanization can be checked and balanced by employing the governance model of devolution and rural capacity.
We first review competing views on urbanization in
Kenya during the colonial and postcolonial era and its
contribution to disenfranchising both urban and rural
inhabitants. We then examine devolution in Kenya
through the lens of Lefebvre’s theory of production of
space and the right to the city, enabling us to
contextualize and redefine ‘the right to the city’. In
the second part we analyze the potential of rural
capacity in Malaysia to absorb a large influx of return
immigrants and demonstrates how they have adapted
and benefited from the prosperity of land in the face of
diminishing energy resources and de-industrialization.
We conclude that coupling devolution with rural
capacity may hold the key to check rapid urbanization,
especially in Kenya.