Introduction

African cities are a mess. Environmental calamities abound. Environmental settings and governance structures leave cities highly vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. The soils are septic from so much overflowing human waste. The surface waters are putrid, left standing because what few drains there are get clogged with solid waste that does not get collected. What little water infrastructure that functions brings polluted water to the small percentage of residents with access. Road infrastructures are so poor and traffic so bad that air pollution chokes the multitudinous pedestrian passersby. Indoor air pollution from charcoal cooking in poorly ventilated small domestic spaces leads to as much toxicity inside as out. Earth, air, water, fire, solid, liquid, gaseous—no matter the element or state, it is in bad shape. Or so it would seem.

This chapter examines the scientific, scholarly, and policy analyses of the environmental crisis perceived to exist for cities in Africa—what I am calling the perspectives of “experts” on such factors as urban water supply, solid waste management, air pollution, forestry, transportation infrastructure, and climate change. After discussing this expertise, I narrow to a case study of its implications for the applied sphere of urban environmental planning, with special reference to Nairobi. It is initially crucial, though, that I talk more about who these experts are, at least for the purposes of placing some limits around what might otherwise be an unwieldy chapter.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a considerable expansion of interest in urban environments in urban geography, and in urban studies more broadly. Urban environmental studies now involve significant strands of the biophysical and atmospheric sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. The literature of urban environmental history is, for example, increasingly sophisticated scientifically and international in scope (Douglas, 2013). Given this incredible range and depth, it is not possible to do justice to even a small segment of this urban environmental work—I cannot even pretend that the next segment of this chapter is a comprehensive literature review. The goal is to appreciate what is distinctive about prevailing experts’ discussions of specific aspects of urban environments and environmental problems in Africa, and of how their expertise might impact planning and policies across the continent.