Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
long-term inhabitants of the city exploit the weaker, more
recent arrivals.
The vast slums of cities in poorer parts of the world
are typically ethnically delineated, with new arrivals pre-
cariously accommodated. For example, Nairobi, Kenya,
has a large slum area, one of the worst in Subsaharan
Africa in terms of amenities, called Kibera. Much of the
land where Kibera is located is owned by Nubians, who
are of Sudanese descent. The Sudanese Nubians settled
in the area of Kibera during the colonial era. Many of
the Nubians have become businesspeople in the city of
Nairobi. The modern tenants of the shanty settlements
in Kibera are largely Luo from western Kenya and Luhya
from northwestern Kenya. During the fall of 2001, some
of the Kiberian tenants were unable to pay the latest
increase in rents. The Nubian landowners came to evict
them, and in the fi ghting that followed, a number of
people were killed. Groups of Luo, Luhya, and others
even took to fi ghting among themselves. The government
intervened to stabilize the situation. The latest rent
increases were withdrawn, but the fundamental problems—
crowding, unemployment, unsanitary conditions, hunger,
and lack of education—remain, and the ethnic groups
living in the neighborhoods of Kibera will likely experi-
ence fi ghting again.
migrated from off-island villages to work in Mombasa and
lived farther from the commercial center.
In recent times, as the city's population has grown
seven times larger than it was in the 1960s, the spatial pat-
tern of Mombasa still refl ects the power of ethnic groups.
The most recent immigrants, desperate for jobs, crowd
the outer zone of the city, off of the island, and in the
shanty settlements.
How do the many millions of urban immigrants
living in the slum-ridden rings and pockets of the cit-
ies of the global periphery and semiperiphery survive?
Extended families share and stretch every dollar they
manage to earn; when one member of the family has a
salaried job, his or her income saves the day for a dozen or
more relatives. When a member of the family (or several
members of a larger community) manages to emigrate to a
core country or an island of development and makes good
money there, part of that income is sent back home and
becomes the mainstay for those left behind. Hundreds
of millions of dollars are transferred this way every year;
remittances
make a critical difference in the poorer coun-
tries of the world (see Chapter 3).
The Informal Economy
In the vast slums, barrios, and favelas, those who are job-
less or unsalaried are not idle. Everywhere you look peo-
ple are at work, inside or in front of their modest habi-
tats, fi xing things, repairing broken items for sale, sorting
through small piles of waste for salvageable items, trading
and selling goods from makeshift stands. What prevails
here is referred to as the
informal economy
—the econ-
omy that is not taxed and is not counted toward a country's
gross national income. What is generated in the informal
economy can add up to a huge total in unrecorded mon-
etary value. The informal economy worries governments
because it is essentially a recordless economy and no taxes
are paid. Remittances are usually delivered in cash, not via
Western Union or a bank. Typically, a trusted community
member (who might pay a comparatively small bribe at
the airport when passing through immigration) carries
remittances to family members.
Power and Ethnicity
Geography plays a major role in the relationships among
ethnic components of a former colonial city. The settle-
ment patterns of cities developed during the colonial
period often persist long after. In a study of the city of
Mombasa, Kenya, during the 1960s, H. J. de Blij found
that the central city, in effect the island on which Mombasa
was built, was informally partitioned among major ethnic
groups. Apart from the Swahili who occupied the Old
Town and adjacent historic portions of the built-up area,
the spatial pattern of occupance by ethnic groups in the
city of Mombasa mirrored the status of the ethnic groups
in the country of Kenya as a whole. The port of Mombasa,
the country's largest, was the city's major employer. The
Kikuyu, whose historic homeland lies far away from
Mombasa to the north of Nairobi, were privileged by the
British during colonial times. Because of their important
position during colonialism, Kikuyu workers and their
families living in Mombasa resided closest to the port and
to the center of economic power. Although the most pow-
erful workers lived closest to the central commercial dis-
trict, the Asians (often from India and thus referred to as
Indians in Mombasa) who controlled the city's commerce
were concentrated on the opposite side of the island,
away from the port. Another powerful ethnic group, the
Kamba, occupied a zone farther outward from the port.
The Mijikenda, a less powerful African ethnic group,
From Colonial to Global CBD
Even as the informal economy thrives among the millions
in the shantytowns, the new era of globalization is making
a major impact in the major cities founded or fostered by
the colonial powers. In 2002, geographers Richard Grant
and Jan Nijman documented this transformation in for-
mer colonial port cities, including Mumbai, India. In this
city, formerly called Bombay, colonial rule produced an
urban landscape marked by strong segregation of for-
eign and local activities, commercial as well as residential
