Exploring Land Development Dynamics in Rural-Urban Fringes: A Reflection on Why Agriculture is Being Squeezed Out by Urban Land Uses in the Nairobi Rural–Urban Fringe?

Abstract

Rapid urban growth has led to an increasing demand for urban land. This land is not readily available within city, but in the rural–urban fringe, due to variety of factors. The conversion of land in rural–urban fringe is leading to the rapid transformations. This article, based on qualitative research approach, explores urbanization in Nairobi rural–urban fringe as a case study, while comparing the situation with literature from other situations in developing countries. This article appreciates that urbanization in an urbanizing context such as in rural–urban fringes need be understood at different scales, that’s site or situational. Separating urbanization pressures is not easy and any attempt to classify them in this article does not in any way show that they are independent of each other. The article concludes that urbanization of rural–urban fringes is contingent upon many factors, primary of which is population increase through natural growth and immigration. Population growth is thus a necessary condition for the urbanization in rural– urban fringe. The process that produces population growth is however a subset of the processes that produces urbanization of rural–urban fringe.