Kenya is bulldozing malls, isn’t it time for land grabbers and tree huggers to talk?

The bulldozers have been busy in Nairobi. Apartment blocks, shopping malls and all manner of fancy buildings have been razed as part of a government crackdown on corruption that includes taking back public land.

Developers in Uganda, especially those building gleaming towers on the soft sands of stolen land, beware. A public dialogue on public open spaces in Kampala this week provided another opportunity for a solemn reading of the names of the dearly departed.
The Mayors’ Gardens in Masaka, the area town clerk announced rather too cheerfully, was gone; sold to some deep-pocketed ‘investor’ to finance – whether fully or in part, it was not clear – of a new office building.

A gentleman from Gulu, speaking with appropriate solemnity, said the town’s golf course had been parcelled out in its entirety and the action had now moved to the Aki-Bua Memorial Stadium and the famous Kaunda Grounds.
“You might see open spaces,” a voice added from the front of the room, “but most of the land in these places has already been sold. People have [acquired] titles.”

Your columnist had been invited as a “public open space user” but, as I pointed out, such a thing does not exist, certainly not in Kampala, because there are no public open spaces anymore. You cannot use what you do not have. More accurately, the invitation was because this column has on several occasions pointed out – and will continue to do so – the foolishness of so-called modernity without development.
Public spaces in my view serve utilitarian, demonstrative and political values. Let us for now ignore the utilitarian and political roles and focus instead on their demonstrative value and of their architecture.

One of the arguments often used to justify the grabbing of public spaces is that they are overgrown and habituated by riff-raffs and other no-gooders. This is usually true, but a flawed reading of the causal loop; public spaces attract riff-raff when they are allowed to fall into disrepair, not because riff-raff are for some reason drawn to open spaces.
A country in which public spaces are allowed to descend into chaos, where cattle herders are allowed to roam across golf greens is more likely to be one where public libraries and museums are either shuttered, or have their ceilings falling in under the weight of bats, lizards and other vermin.

It is not by coincidence that countries with interesting museums also tend to have parks, botanical gardens and plazas; it is all part of an intellectual ecosystem that understands the importance of shared spaces, memory, art and life as a consciously lived experience.
So how do we navigate the creation and preservation of these public spaces? Three quick thoughts:

One, we need to be cleverer than we have let on so far. One example that might cost me a few Christmas cards: Why do we have places of religious worship that are only used to full capacity on one day of the week when we could have community centres that are used daily?
Or, if an investor wants to take 10 acres of a sports ground in Lugogo, why not give it to them for one dollar and on condition that they buy 50 acres within a 10-kilometre radius on which a bigger sports complex can be built?
Two, we need to think long-term. Consider this: Data show, and this column has said before, that 19 busloads pour into urban areas across the country every day. That is more than 400,000 per year and more than four million people over the next decade.

They will need food, shelter, sanitation, public transport, schools and healthcare and no, they will not go back to the village, but will get rich or die trying. What is our plan?
If we were projecting the shape of society over the next 50 to 100 years, we would be imposing restrictions on single-family developments in many parts and locking in utility allowances, including road reserves, as pre-conditions for planning permissions.

What does it say about us when the mistakes committed 30 years ago in Muyenga – where tiny roads snake through large mansions – are being repeated in new middle-class residential neighbourhoods?
Finally, we need to end the grabbing of public spaces, protect the few that remain, and take back those that we can. It might seem improbable today looking at some of the grand structures that sit in wetlands or public parks, but if there is any lesson to learn from Kenya, it is that one day we will have a president without a re-election campaign to fight, and a lot of busy bulldozers. Parks can be built over. Dreams cannot.

Mr Kalinaki is a journalist and a poor man’s
freedom fighter. [email protected]
Twitter: @Kalinaki.