Kenya’s population growth is slowing in cities and towns
The country has six times the people it did at independence in 1963
Eastleigh, a neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a thrumming hive of hawkers, honking cars, belching lorries, potholed pavements, jostling pedestrians and legions of young men loafing around, clearly out of work. “Too many cars, too many people,” tut-tuts Charles Mwangi, a taxi driver from another part of the sprawling city, which overall has grown in population from 361,000 at independence in 1963 to some 5.3m today.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Northern Kenya’s exploding population”
From the April 8th 2023 edition
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