Streetscapes: behind the scenes : perspectives of streets as place in a slum setting, and how local concepts of place are affected by political and global development interests

Sammanfattning: Planning processes are often disconnected from the experienced place on the ground. Ideologies of space, developing agendas, time constraints and budgets serve to limit the understanding of the lived world of those dwelling in an area and stand at risk to reduce it to the abstract space of maps. This induces territorial control from above and an ignorance of the soft, social values of the individual. Urbanization and globalization are reshaping our world and demands knowledge, understanding and change. It generates changes in the urban fabric with growing class differences and an increasing physical and social fragmentation. The majority of this change is taking place in the global South, putting an immense pressure on the informal settlements in the cities. Future urban planners have a big task in turning this into a sustainable and equal process. However, planners keep imposing planning ideals from above, shaped by western ideologies of space that are disregarding slums as becoming one of the major human habitats. The relation between the life world on the ground and the system world of the planner remain distant. How can planners and landscape architects understand and manage their role in these processes better? This thesis set out to explore that relationship. The first phase of that task was undertaken through a field study in Nairobi, Kenya. Today, Nairobi host more than 200 informal settlements that are the home to more than half of the cities population. The authors of the thesis got the opportunity to make a report for UN-Habitat, who has recently introduced a new approach to slum upgrading that is emphasizing the role of streets as an entry point. Focus in the report was the Korogocho Street Upgrading Programme that involved the upgrading of the major streets in Korogocho Slum in Nairobi. The Street Upgrading Project was studied from multiple levels though the interaction with residents in Korogocho, policy makers, politicians and project planners. The streets were considered to be a field where multiple strategies and tactics of the actors were played out, shaping the experience of it and its future development. It demonstrated many dimensions and symbolic meanings, highlighting several conflicts between the system world and the life world. Consequently, the thesis is a reflection upon the authors’ own working process in Nairobi, and how they were affected by the system world of international organizations such as UN-Habitat, policy making processes, the life world of the resident of Korogocho and their own world as landscape architecture students. Theory, narratives and reflections comment on the content of the published UN-report that was finalized in Nairobi, issues and phenomena encountered in Korgocho, at the UN-Headquarters and through interviews with local government agents. Furthermore, the methods and tools used in the making of the report are commented, elaborated and evaluated. This serves as an elaboration on the complex relationship between ideologies of space, the multiple realities on the ground, and how this complicated issue can be approached as a practicing landscape architect or planner. 05