Nairobi: No city for the poor and {lower} middle class

Nairobi has been experiencing quite some growth over the past ten years. Having lived in the city for the better part of my life, not only do I empathize but I am also cognizant of the fact of how difficult home ownership is for the average middle class worker in Nairobi. But first, of matters of pertinent to this debate, I think it would do great justice to you to first put into perspective as to who and what do we consider middle class.

Africa’s and Kenya’s ‘bulging’ middle class?

News articles have increasingly been inundated with articles and op-eds on Africa’s growth and have time and again continued to paint a rosy picture of a continent increasingly becoming sophisticated courtesy of a growing middle class. Several opinion pieces have been penned on this growth or its lack thereof or its general over estimation. Whether it is this Quartz Africa’s piece on its over estimation based on analysis by Credit Suisse, or this column on CNBC Africa by renowned Africa economist Razia Khan or the Economist’s own analysis of this so called middle class, acres of web pages and news paper slots have time and again propagated this narrative oblivious of facts on the ground. What is strikingly common in all these narratives is that there has been growth, but it all falls short at that, failing to look at this growth in context.

LOOK out from the cafés of Accra’s financial district and you could be almost anywhere. In the shadow of glassy skyscrapers, American-accented entrepreneurs order lattes and ponder spreadsheets. “You couldn’t have imagined this even five years ago,” Joseph Baffour, a local financier, says of his surroundings. “There’s been an astronomical change.”

I remember vividly one morning walking into Nation center and settling on my desk holding a Java coffee on my hand when a colleague who is business journalist retorted while holding my coffee a loft in the noisy newsroom. “The bulging middle class eehh!” Well for a moment it was a chance to laugh but it was not until later on that day did I critically question if I did consider myself as being a member of the middle class. My answer was without a shadow of doubt unrestrained as I considered my self middle class. Though not based on the ability to buy a nice cup of Java coffee but based on several other factors. Such is the measurement of the middle class that I find baffling akin to Joseph’s idea of what he considers middle class.

Of course, peoples spending power has increased. I think this is very evident in Nairobi based on the number of successfully sophisticated and chic venues or entities dotting the streets of Nairobi. People are willing to pay more for better terms of service or just plain convenience. This reminds me of when I was meeting someone who insisted on meeting at ArtCaffe(another popular Nairobi eatery more associated with the affluent). Personally, I thought this was one of those ideosycrancies and was very accomodating to meet them there. Afterall who doesn’t? We all have idiosyncrasies. It was not until after the meeting that I asked him why he really loved ArtCaffe and he remarked with a chuckle,

“Java nowadays is like a matatu where everyone goes, ArtCaffe has class”

So who should we consider middle class? According to Razia Khan, some pundits have placed the middle class as those who earn between 2 and 20 dollars a day. Others have opined that for one to qualify as middle class they have to earn at least 10 dollars a day. Others see the term middle class as those who spend at least half of their income on goods and services beyond just basic food an basic necessities. So first let us put these numbers into perspective. In my humble opinion, one who earns two dollars per day for a period of one month should not be in this category as they are very much unlikely to have money for other non basic needs. This translates to an average of 6,000KSh which if one was to pay rent, they have to live in a very tiny house possibly in a slum. So the 2 dollar threshold just does not hold water. So let us take another lower threshold of say 7 dollars which would averagely add up to 21,000KSH. Now this I would consider to be lower middle class though this figure still irks me. For someone single, such a salary could help them pass through day to day though consider someone with a family earning as much having to cater for education ,health and other basic necessities. Such an amount is hardly enough. To further add wood to this fire, taxation which is averagely 30 percent has not been factored in if one is in formal employment. Meaning for one to qualify as being middle class one has to take home a gross salary of 30,000KSH, be single and stay single until salary positions change for the positive. Putting people in such circumstances as middle class is a gross misrepresentation.

Of Place, Space, Language and Employment as functions of race, gender and class

I will begin this paragraph with a story that comes to my memory of a local C.E.O of a tech multinational operating in Kenya getting irked by one of his junior staffers living in a housing estate North of Nairobi that perhaps in his opinion was not appropriate for one of his staffers. And this introduces a pandora’s box where with certain change in status one’s is forced by circumstances to ‘style up’. And I understand why management may be concerned by such. For instance paying someone one thousand dollars a month(by Nairobi standards) yet they put up in a shack in a slum. This naturally leaves more questions than answers. On the other hand, it is not in the place of management to police where their staff live, though staff are at times considered as the public face of a company hence some may require staff to keep up with the appropriate optics. It was not long until the fellow had to move out and into a more ‘appropriate’ housing estate.

Nothing points to this more than bringing to light how we identify ourselves. To illustrate this I will expound using how my best friend identifies himself. Of course my best friend and I have mutual friends, and this comes out more when I notice a thin line on how he answers the question of where he lives. When he is with people he considers not affluent or from ‘the hood’(this term is personally troubling, apologies for using it here) he would inform them he lives in Kawangware. That is how he introduced himself to me, I always knew he lived in Kawangware until I paid him a visit. This is not Kawangware!!! He lived on Gitanga road in very good house. On the other hand, to people he perceived of a higher class he told them that he lives in Lavington! Why the changes in self identity?

Now how does all this relate to the city, housing and the so-called middle class?

As shown above, place, language, and class plays a crucial role in understanding power dynamics in a city. Who has access to the city, when and how important salient features are for us to understand Nairobi’s current growth. Who are the current housing projects ment to serve? What is the level of clientele likely to buy into such housing units? What amenities do they have? What civic tools or organisations are at their disposal in order to self organise and champion for their needs. We know of cases where people were denied the chance to buy a house simply because the seller felt the client was not as eloquent due to their mannerisms. It is also very difficult for two men who intend to be housemates in modern day Nairobi to get an apartment to lease. This is due to suspicion by landlords they they might be gay. Or the other stereotype that young men are noisy and landlords tend to eschew such tenants preferring female tenants. The other stereotype that a male who is dreadlocked may not be a good tenant. These factors point to the implicit biases that also affect the ability of people to not only access housing but also access affordable housing. I argue several of such housing projects are designed in mind of certain personas littered with certain implicit biases. In my next post I shall highlight some of these designs flaws.

On the other hand it is fundamental that we should not use matters optics as measures of growth and as an illustration of being members of the middle class. Clearly one thing we could draw to is that these middle class numbers just do not add up, who are Kenya’s real estate companies building for given the very low mortgage uptake? Who is the current construction boom benefiting if most of these houses being purchased are being bought in hard cash. What is this source of money? Should we still consider such purchasers middle class? This in my opinion is bull that needs to be wrestled by the horns, placed on the rack ready to be guillotined and dissected.