Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi

The paper begins with a very short summary of the growing employment problem in urban areas of Kenya, in particular Nairobi, and an equally short description of some of the current approaches to analyzing this problem. The paper goes on to argue that while categories like the informal sector, the intermediate sector, and the small scale family enterprise sector have been and continue to be very useful for describing a group of activities and the job creation potential of these activities; they do not provide any concrete way of predicting the conditions under which that potential will be realised. It is then suggested that one way of making such predictions is by analyzing the make-up and expected future of communities within Nairobi where most of the least fortunate residents of the city live. It is finally argued that this analysis can be done using methods developed for analyzing entire less developed countries, for these countries are often in situations of dependence similar to that of low income communities within Nairobi.