Growing old in a new city

Once imagined as a colonial city with restricted access to Africans and now planned as a ‘world class African metropolis’, Nairobi today is a rapidly changing city. What does it mean to grow old in such a city? Based on memories of people who grew up in Railway housing in Nairobi between the late 1930s and 1980s, this article examines rapid change from the point of view of permanence and aging. What imaginaries of a future Nairobi did long-term African residents have, how did they transform the space of Nairobi in efforts to realize those dreams and how do current changes feel in light of those dreams and longevity in the city? It argues that: (1) to understand urbanity in Africa we need to address long-term residents as well as migrants; (2) Africans who had access to permanent jobs and housing had a different interaction with the city that shaped their understanding of temporality and cityness; (3) the new plans and changes in Nairobi do not conceive of these residents, nor take into account their dreams of modern African urbanity, replicating instead a colonial city; and (4) we also need to pay attention to the affective ties to the city conditioned by notions of temporality that elicit different responses to change and displacement.