Collapse

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In Nairobi, the speed of urban growth is producing a parallel threat of architectural failure: in a recent spate of tower block collapses, many have died. Nairobians describe collapsed tower blocks as “fake,” referring to ideas of the counterfeit, as well as anxieties about morally suspect economies. Simultaneously, state-led development is re-envisioning Nairobi as a “world-class” city of spectacular infrastructure and gleaming high-rises. Though seemingly disconnected processes, the two are deeply entangled. Building on Africanist debates about the power of the double and the relationship between the surface and the underneath, I explore this superficially sleek but materially fragile landscape through a lens of “gray development,” complicating standard distinctions between the informal and the formal to uncover the underneath of Nairobi's world-class fantasies.</jats:p>

City of icebergs: materiality, surface and depth in Nairobi’s built environment

“…The devastating building collapses that have occurred across the city have killed scores of Nairobians. Such cases of building failure in many ways expose the political economy that has produced these landscapes, revealing the fragilitybut also the duplicity and opaque practicesof the city's real estate sector (Smith 2020). As Mwau and Sverdlik (2020: 487) have observed, 'Nairobi's exclusionary formal city planning and highly opaque, corrupt land governance have stimulated a parallel : : : planning process.'…”

“…Associated with poor-quality materials, substandard construction methods and disregard for regulation and planning, these structural failures have predominantly occurred in poor-quality tenement housing, which increasingly dominates the city's low-income rental housing market. Since 2010, approximately three or four collapses have occurred per year, with very few repercussions for building owners nor any effective overhaul of regulations or site inspection (Mutambo 2016;Smith 2020).…”

Building concrete futures: materiality and urban lives in West Africa

“…After this use-by date, buildings and infrastructures require large-scale maintenance operations. Building collapses already occur repeatedly across the African continent, where they cause hundreds of deaths each year (Boateng 2018; Smith 2019; 2020). Structures are built quickly, by underqualified builders, often with poor-quality materials, without respecting proportions and international norms, and without building permits.…”

“…Concrete gives political and social meanings to these infrastructures as well as the buildings and roads that are made out of it (Harvey 2010;Harvey and Knox 2015). This article also analyses the construction industries, which are 'highly visible, yet at the same time particularly opaque' (Smith 2019;. By interrogating the urban futures built with concrete, it also questions the environmental impact of the construction industry in Africa, an issue that deserves deeper investigation (Van Damme 2018;Schmidt et al 2020).…”

“…Following the flow of cement and concrete, this article examines what kind of space is produced by concrete, who experiences it, for whom it is conceived, and how this material shapes urban forms, the lives of city dwellers and their urban futures. By investigating three dimensions associated with concreteits links with capital, its social meanings for inhabitants-builders, and its ecological impactsthis article aims to contribute to recent work on urban materiality (Hoffman 2017;Archambault 2018;2021a;Smith 2019;Dawson 2021;Choplin 2020a; that analyses the major role of everyday stuff in African cities (see Fontein and Smith 2023).…”