RONALD MATENDE PO BOX 30089-00100 NAIROBI

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST SPIRIT OF PHYSICAL PLANNING: PLANNING FOR HUMAN COMFORT. The relationship between the physical environment and the wellbeing of man can be equated to that between the human body and the soul. A sick body affects the soul just as much as a disturbed soul sickens the body. Just in the same manner in which the human body and the material world interact with the soul and the spiritual world, so is the relationship between the physical worlds and mans comfort and wellbeing. The physical planner therefore becomes a midwife to a desired new world. Physical planning is therefore not about planning the physicality of our settlements but about achieving comfort and ultimate happiness for the soul of man. Ways must therefore be found of making physical planning in Kenya people-centred as opposed to its current elitist status. Planning in Kenya should be centred on the peoples needs and aspirations. The human desire to order the world around him for his own convenience and comfort provides us perhaps with the first primitive instincts for planning. To re-establish the spirit and

philosophy of physical planning we must retract our steps backwards to the times when humans started taming nature in order to live in harmony with it. Sometimes the physical environment is unrelenting and man is forced to adjust to it to survive. At certain points the physicality seems so fragile and may require protection. But in many cases nature provides the initial ordered space for man to improve for his own convenience and comfort. Now this is where planning starts. Proper planning should have three main products: a comfortable environment for man; a productive environment for his livelihood and a sustainable environment. Why are we interested in all these? Why are we interested in understanding the behavior of the physical world? The answer to this is: so that we may optimally manipulate it with sustainability. How much therefore does the physical planner understand the environment he intends to plans? The physical environment is rich in resources which are required for the wellbeing of man and it is the duty of a physical planner to identify them for sustainable exploitation. Equally the environment is fully of hazardous sites and processes which should be avoided. In this sense no other discipline may be as important as physical planning. But is this the case in Kenya? How many Kenyans know the functions of a physical planner? In fact Kenyans know more about surveyors than planners because the planners work has not been seen.

The quality of human life is directly related to the environment in which he lives. The physical planner through available tools has the capacity to determine the quality of the environment in which man lives. Some of these tools include incentives, control measures and punishment. Human desires and expectations from the environment are not only complex and multiple but more often than not selfish and even contradictory. This makes development control measures even more central to physical planning. Planning for quality will therefore require flexible people centred standards based on culturally derived criteria. The resultant physical environment should be a reflection of a peoples culture and aspirations. Given the strong emphasis by our cultures on humanity will plans based on African cultures reflect more humanity than productivity? Whichever the perspective, finally plans produced by our planners should indicate a substantive respect for peoples values and ethos. For instance sharing is a very strong African ethic. Many urban plans in the past have instead encouraged exclusiveness and gated communities. However in the recent past we have witnessed resurgence in the spirit of sharing through exhibitions in CBD of Nairobi. These structures accommodate many business units in one roof in a convenient and comfortable manner. It is a real economical way of using space. it looks more of an extension of the idea of the African open air market. Planner should resort back to African cultures to enrich and brand their planning concepts instead of borrowing from irrelevant experiences of the Western world. As it is now,

African values which had been relegated to the rural areas are now gate crashing in the urban space creating a mix that should be manipulated by the planner to help midwife new local based planning paradigms. Am particularly intrigued by those poor ladies who always gate crash in the CBD of Nairobi city to sell fresh farm products. Cant planners find a way of accommodating them as part of the CBD business fraternity? This is a challenge which the planner must face and not run away from. The Karen style of settlements is a poor reflection on African culture. Africans dont hide, they dont live alone in an expansive compound they actually share and live together. True spirit of planning will therefore find a lot of great ideas in our cultures and ethos. Anyway our towns have many problems which the physical planner has overlooked. Planners should be reminded that they are trained to solve our physical problems in order to make us more comfortable and happy. Planning should actually evolve in tandem with changing global processes and trends. It should actually keep abreast with changes both inside Kenya and in the region. The thinking behind the planning process should take into account all emerging development challenges and focus solutions towards them. It is without doubt that rapid urbanization in Kenya has generated more problems through formation slum settlement. This settlements host a population that is faced by many problems including extreme poverty, poor sanitation,

communicable diseases, insecurity and poor housing. Addressing this problem require a multidisciplinary thinking based on strategic frameworks. We must ask what the problem is and what caused it. Without understanding the fundamental causes of slum settlements in our towns it will not be easy to find lasting solutions. Planning should therefore be proceeded by a situation analysis and not merely a physical survey. There are many other problems that warrant our attention as planners. Globalization for instance has made it very easy for anybody with access to internet to import a car. This has turned Nairobi into a city of vehicles where little space is left for pedestrians to walk. To address this problem the planner should lobby the government to regulate the number of vehicles put on our roads rather than recommending expansion of roads. Other solution may include planning for mass transit systems together with disincentives for the use of private vehicles. However this manner of thinking rarely finds its way in those institutions bestowed with legal power to do planning. Planners should identify all physical problems that generate discomfort and inconvenience for man in his living and working environment and supply solutions to them. As it is now, the department of physical planning seems to be stuck in a time warp thinking more about producing maps that say very little and calling them plans. Plans are actually ideas not maps. These ideas may be represented on a map but that does not make a map a plan. Planning is simply putting peoples desires in a more

orderly and convenient manner. You cannot purport to plan if you dont know what the people want. The department which is the only institution with the national mandate to plan and shape the physical outlook of the country for human comfort and increased productivity seem to have lost their basic manual that guides good planning thought. They should configure themselves to think globally, focus regionally and act locally otherwise the benefits of the new world order will surpass us leaving us vulnerable to the vagaries of globalization. This is the only way to revitalize the original spirit of physical planning in Kenya. It will therefore be prudent for the department to set up a serious think tank to recast its act in current development perspective and for the universities which supply it with manpower to revise its syllabus to capture the current global trends and processes. The focus should be towards generating solutions to all Kinds discomfort resulting from the environment in order to obtain ultimate happiness for mankind.