rejoined by a constant cap and urban planning expert and director of Napolitan sand urban planning network here in Nairobi constant thank you so much for joining us on the program before we before we hone in specifically on Nairobi we need look at urban development what is your general assessment of Africa's major cities African cities at an interesting point because the continent is the least urbanized on the country in the world globally but has the highest rate of urbanization so what's happening on the continent is we have this big shift of people moving into urban areas and the growth is tremendous and how the continent responds to that will determine a lot for the upcoming future and it is that response isn't it how cities respond that tells us about some of the challenges the cities are facing a city like Nairobi we often talk about traffic but in your view where are some of the big challenges when it comes to lots of people moving into urban areas honestly one of the biggest challenges that goes great across the continent probably less so in North Africa but in West East Central and Southern Africa is the massive inequalities socio-economic inequalities that is that the cities face and this of course affects has a direct effect on things like service delivery on how you know the city would be planned on the approaches that the city takes it has a political impact on how the city is managed so that in inequality and social justice issues are critical in the African continent today and so how do those issues play out when we think about the future of a city like Nairobi how do people take these into consideration particularly planners and architects when they develop these ideas of a future Nairobi there's been a lot of focus over the last couple of years on how we want African cities to come out and there's quite a lot of engagement going on among planners across the continent a lot of publications are now coming out that may sound a bit theoretical but it's a start over much long term move we're having a lot more participation even through constitutions a good example is Kenya where now we have much more residents Association involvement both in the poorer neighborhoods and more affluent neighborhoods and that is you know the beginning of our process but we still need to redefine what we want our cities to come out as we should not copy-paste European North American or Asian cities we need to redefine what we want African cities to come out as based on our socio-economic and cultural circumstances so when you imagine a future Nairobi what does it look like to you taking that into consideration that we're not necessarily trying to imitate the growth and development of European cities first of all we have to like kind of kill this kind of segregation we have it within our cities using that Nairobi as an example you know we have very clear marginalised groups that are not outside even not even plant for people in what we call the informal settlements our people prefer calling them the poor any neighborhoods so that is one critical area and it and once were able to bring that kind of cohesion we'll end up giving rights in areas like transportation in areas like solid waste management education and we'll have a bigger focus on proper land use allocation not just putting focusing or development on certain communities or groups fantastic thank you so much constant custom kept here joining us in studio giving us some insights into a future Nairobi