Smaller cities must feed, not lean on, Nairobi

Cities play a vital role in the growth of economies, aided by a number of factors, including population and concentration of economic activities.

According to a report by the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o, Nairobi County topped the list of regional units in revenue collection with Sh1.5 billion during the first quarter of 2020/21 financial year. Nakuru emerged the third posting Sh294.2 million.

Recently, President Uhuru Kenyatta commissioned Nakuru as the fourth city of Kenya after Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicates that in the 2019 census, the Kenyan population stood at 47.5 million. In terms of distribution, Nairobi led followed by Kiambu, and Nakuru at 4.3 million, 2.4 million, and 2.1 million respectively. Kisumu and Mombasa recorded 1.14 million and 1.19 million.

Globally, at least 75 percent of the population live in urban settlements, seeing the flooding in the capitals and secondary cities.

Noteworthy, the secondary cities are the backbone of the primary cities. They act as the secondary level of government – key manufacturing, resource-industry centers, and advanced-industry significance.

Referring to the article published in the Business Daily on December 8th, this year by Director, Petroleum Focus Consultant George Wachira, Nakuru can be an attractive weekend destination for local tourists if correctly located quality hotels are set up. Besides, the city can grow agricultural industries among other opportunities because of the available resources.

A country with a strong system of secondary cities could double if not triple the nation’s GDP. However, this can only be achieved through planning, like planning for war.

Cities, just like organizations exhibits variations in economic outcomes. This means that we can celebrate the occasioning of new Nakuru City but later have low yields to the county’s GDP.

It is said that Singapore and Cuba were founded at about the same time and in similar circumstances. Now, Singapore has made profound progress with a super-charged economy compared to Cuba, which has an economic and social disaster. Primarily, a huge gap exists between the two because of leadership.

Therefore, the existing cities should have leaders, who will not look upon Nairobi for stimulus packages, rather they should be the economic pillar of the primary city.

Mombasa, Kisumu, and Nakuru should considerably work independently by establishing a team that will work on the alignment, focus, and strategies that will merge local institutions and businesses to the same page of prosperity.

This will be vital to realize the dream of President Kenyatta of accelerating industrialization which will see an increase in GDP and create more jobs.

This is an awakening call to current and aspiring leaders, mostly in cities to prioritize planning that will enable Kenya to be the modern Singapore.