The Transformation of the Production and Retail of Building Materials for Low‐income Housing in Mombasa, Kenya

This paper examines the changes which have occurred in the low‐income settlements in Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city, in connection with the production and retail of building materials. The analysis is conducted via the articulation of modes of housing production concept. Prior to the implementation of settlement upgrading in Mombasa, funded by the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development, there existed a distinct mode of low‐income housing production and consumption in the town. The typical low‐income housing in Mombasa is the swahili house which had its own market both for the supply of traditional building materials as well as tenancy arrangements. With the commencement of the provision of low‐income housing based on international aid agencies' planning orthodoxy, the swahili housing scene has undergone a tremendous transformation. The proscription of the use of traditional (indigenous) materials in housing construction has resulted in raising the cost of housing beyond the majority of the urban poor. In addition, it has adversely affected small‐scale retail outlets which specialized in the supply of these materials. This process has gone hand in hand with the prescription that only industrially manufactured materials are to be used in low‐income settlements. The popularization of the use of industrially manufactured materials has also resulted in the emergence of middlemen in the supply of these materials to the low‐income settlements. This development too has meant that the cost of building materials has to rise, in some cases by over five times, from the production points to the construction sites. The fundis (traditional artisans) have also found themselves in a precarious situation because they have either to get extra training in handling the ‘new’ materials and ‘modern’ housing plans or be marginalized to mere repair works. The paper concludes that the articulation between the traditional and the modern modes of housing production in Mombasa has been to the benefit of the latter. It is, however, pointed out that the process of commercialization of low‐income settlements had commenced earlier than the involvement of international aid agencies, and therefore state intervention in this sector merely speeded up this process and increased its magnitude. It is argued that for state intervention to benefit the intended group, it must build upon the pre‐existing organizational structures as blind intervention would be costly, if not counterproductive, and may exacerbate the problem, as the Mombasa situation reveals.