In last week’s Going Places I was at the temporary home of the GoDown Arts Centre in Kilimani and talking with the Centre’s Executive Director Joy Mboya. She is determined that the new GoDown, which is going to be built in its old place of Dunga Road, will be open and welcoming to a wide public; she also believes that Nairobi – all of Kenya’s cities – should have open and welcoming public places where people can breathe fresh air, relax and meet. ‘It’s important that we make public spaces that work for all of us,’ she said.
It made me think. Nairobi wasn’t designed for the benefit of all its peoples. It was a colonial city. Like most of the cities across sub-Saharan Africa that I have visited, there is no city square. None of them have a public meeting place such as Trafalgar Square in London, Piazza Navona in Rome, La Grande Place in Brussels, Plaza Mayor in Madrid or Red Square in Moscow. Clearly, the designers of these colonial cities of Africa didn’t want public places where the majority peoples could meet.
