Rural-urban dualism and ineffective land use control instruments at the rural- urban Interface

Abstract

Hitherto, land use planning in Kenya was practiced in the colonial urban areas and the scheduled highlands but not in the African markets and rural reserves. This then created favorable land use patterns in the European settlements and unfavorable land use patterns in the African settlements. In the recent times, efforts have been made to introduce land use planning in the former African settlements in order to harmonize land use patterns in the country. However, effective land use planning within the former African settlements especially at the rural-urban interface has proved futile. Hence, the favorable spatial patterns in the former colonial settlements and the unfavorable spatial patterns in the former African settlements can still be observed during the era of post-colonial Kenya. This paper seeks answers to the following question: why would land use control instruments which are fairly effective in the former European settlements become ineffective in the former African settlements especially at the rural-urban interface? Arising from the review of literature, it is concluded that overtime, the colonial settlements and the African settlements land use economies evolved to what can be considered as two composite land use systems. The two land use systems have variations in land use objectives, legal provisions, institutional frameworks and land delivery models. The variations in components between the former African rural land use systems and those of the colonial urban and scheduled areas system were not harmonized. Therefore, the European settlement areaspecific land use control instruments could not be effective in the former African land use system where the rural-urban interface is located