Dadaab Garden City, Kenya

 

An extract from the travel diaries of Marcus Busby: 50 Cities to Shape the 22^nd Century

Edition 48 Smart Garden City 75^th Anniversary Series

Dadaab Garden City, Kenya

31^st May 2107

 

As part of the 75^th anniversary celebrations since the inauguration of the first Smart Garden City in 2025, each week we are visiting one of the 50 New Garden Cities that reversed social, economic and ecological breakdown with their unique expressions of regenerative urbanism.

Last week we visited Ole-Jonas City, named after the first two lumberjacks of 21^st century Greenland, the city has been nicknamed the Snow Crystal, and is situated on the banks of the southerly end of the Northern Fjord. We visited the neo-boreal forests famous for producing the finest grain timbers in the world, the arctic agricultures set within vast geodomes, the deep- energy plants, and we travelled on their saltwater-powered submariner subway.

This week in Edition 48, we are visiting one of the oldest Smart Garden Cities in the world, The Garden City of Dadaab in Kenya, inaugurated in 2027 it now has a metropolitan population of around 2 million inhabitants, an holistic area spanning over 520 KM² including its regenerative farmlands and crystal clean freshwater lakes.

From its humble beginnings as the largest refugee complex to have ever existed in human recorded history, it now represents one of the most multi-cultural, biodiverse and prosperous new cities in the world. In this series we have already covered the successes of 17 other refugee camp ameliorations including the cities of Zaatari (Jordan), Yida (South Sudan), and Katumba (Tanzania). Thus Dadaab Garden City is the 18th Smart Garden City we have visited that began life as a refugee settlement.

Today we will meet four of Dadaab’s inhabitants. William a 23 year old placement student, Annushka, a mid-career Civil Servant, Silvi an architect and, City Elder, Gedi Hujale, better known as Papa Hujale.

 

William recently completed his full-time Higher Educere Diploma in Dadaab and has chosen to specialize in Agroecology and Ecosystem Restoration. He is currently on a six-week placement at one of the 294 operational market garden training centres in the city. This is part of the Garden City Succession Programmes which train specialists in all scales of agriculture and ecosystem restoration, the full program is three years. He has already completed the Home Garden and Orchard modules. We ask him about his aspirations.

“I would like to be a Team Leader at the Broadscale, you know – overseeing the forestry and agroforestry – I just love being in nature working with a team and nurturing our environment. I like architecture too and I believe by growing high-grade materials with ecology in mind, we can supply the best to support our city in her expression of beauty and equilibrium.”

William, you are on your Foundation Year, why did you choose Agroecology and Ecosystem Restoration?

“Well, it’s in everyone’s blood who chooses to live in a Garden City, it was really whilst doing a work placement at school, I mean I already did the universal foundations in practical ecology and restoration, but I chose to go to a Broadscale site – you know they are all around 4500 acres and there you really get to connect with nature – I love wild animals and I also love team working – it feels like we are miles away from the city and yet we are only 15 minutes from the city centre – but it feels wild. I was very lucky, and they let me co-pilot one of the timber extraction blimps, I got to lower the ropes, wait for them to tether, and then I lifted 80 tons of timber up into the fuselage. It just felt good to receive this which my ancestors had planted so that we can make new homes and schools and remove it without damaging any of the surrounding ecosystem, then fly it to the mill. That shipment was for a new school, it just felt good to do what I love, to fly, and to help towards something successive generations will benefit from. That is when I decided this is for me.”

So are your family also in this field of work in the city?

“My brother is in a similar field, he has almost completed his training with Outer Worlds Biosystem Pioneers – he has completed the modules I am currently in, plus he has been doing the extra training in preparation for working on other planets – to establish biospheres. My sister really enjoys chemistry and technology, she is currently working in biomaterials and specializing in fuel cell engineering.”

To power the transport and habitation?

“Yes exactly – for terrestrial transit and central power storage. Her fiancé works in electro-magnetic propulsion for the transport ministry, he began as an apprentice on the hover trains and was a natural so they chose him to work on the interplanetary vehicles – which my brother will be using soon – so we all have these ‘ecosystem pioneer’ interests at heart.”

What exactly are you working on at the moment?

“My week is split between completing the Successional Trainings, going from Home Garden to Broadscale. I’m currently at Market Garden Operation Level growing and supplying Organic Produce to the city three days, but I also continued my work experience at Broadscale, so two days a week I’m working there a mixture of timber extraction, tree planting, coppice rotations, and sending the brash through the chippers to supply mulch to the composting centres and annual cultures.”

What do your parents do?

They both chose to retire at 50 as consultants, and they currently continue this as well as pursuing other interests. My father was involved in the construction of the light-rail network – I remember travelling with him to work on one of my Parent Guide days in lower school. On several occasions we travelled on the Commercial Light Rail network and visited one of the Metabolic Centres in the periphery, located in the centre of the Broadscale Zones. Whilst passing by on the rail route I got to see many of the operations conducted in these areas, from the tree nurseries and the agroforestries, to seeing my first forestry blimp. I also saw Wildebeest, Zebra, Waterbuck and Gazelle. This inspired me early-on to become involved in continuing the restoration of the forests and grasslands. My father is now a rail consultant and enjoys painting. My mother was a teacher and she still helps with this on a part-time basis, she has always played Cora and now plays in the Dadaab String Orchestra.

What do you do in your time off in the city?

“I just love cycling around and visiting friends who are artisans, their workshops and projects, and we love camping by the lakes, with other friends who are musicians, camp fires, swimming, fishing – you know it’s a garden city so we enjoy the best of everything!”

 

 

Next, we met with Annushka, who works for the City Council in Governance.  Annushka tells us about some aspects of decision-making.

Hi Annushka, you are part of the team working in Governance, what can you tell us?

Hi, well, Dadaab adopted the same system as the other Garden Cities – we have a tiered voting system that is cumulative. Ideas are proposed at any community level, from the Individual to Street Votes, Neighborhood, District, Vale, City, and because Dadaab is large we also have Metro-City. With a majority the idea or proposal progresses to the next tier. If it’s a really great idea, or a project that can really improve things at scale, it can progress right to the top. Whichever level the majority rests at, is the level that the policy is adopted.

What are some current proposals?

“Oh! It really is so diverse, I love my job because we facilitate so many brilliant initiatives, through participatory planning, also great ideas that can come from a grandma or a youngster – we  never know what’s coming next – and the community decide, we just consider feasibility, impacts and viability. Recently we introduced the SkyBus to Dadaab and several schools requested travel slots for classes to be able to transit across the city. We didn’t know if there was opposition to this, or if the children would be happy to do this. The children were very enthusiastic and the parents too. This proposal has garnered overwhelming majority at all tiers, so now it is possible for schools to book travel slots on the SkyBus. Although travelling around is very easy in the city – with the multimodal network, the children, teachers, in fact everyone thought it was a good idea to keep the children acquainted with all transit modes, and new ones as they are adopted.
We have had some unique proposals that have been adopted by certain streets, such as one street situated by the Oaklands wanted to become a centre for owls! And another wanted a late-night music license because they have a very active jazz scene and another have designated their neighbourhood as a centre for Carnival Arts. It’s the same as the other Garden Cities in that votes set precedents at the tiers where they garner majority votes. You know, when an idea is fully embraced it can project across all 50 Garden Cities – for instance the ‘Universal Income’ was adopted very early on, and the ‘Houses at 18 Programme’, now every garden city has zero poverty, and every 18-year-old is gifted a home by the city on their coming of age.

When it’s a policy change the policy is adopted subject to the majority and when it’s a project proposal, the successful projects receive funding through the Participatory Budget process, and often supplemented by crowdfunding.”

Do you enjoy your job?

“Of course I do – I love helping ideas come to fruition and I love meeting all the different groups of people proposing the ideas, they are so zany! Every day is different. I love visiting the projects too.”

 

Next we meet Architect Silvi at a little woodland café near the very centre of Dadaab. She tells us about her role in the city.

Hi Silvi, can you tell us about your current practice?

Hi, yes so, I am a community architect. I am employed by the City to work with families looking to extend or build new homes. They may be newcomers, or couples who have a new baby or new adults on the ‘Houses at 18’ program. I also work with people downsizing and work closely with the City Council’s housing allocations department. It’s a diverse role which is why I chose it.

As you will know, in all garden cities, nearly every building is unique – every building is custom designed, custom-built, or self-build; either designed by the people who will live there or designed by the community to meet their needs. I work with these individuals and community groups to facilitate that and to create the construction drawings for the build crews. Some people are happy to choose off-the-shelf designs, and I listen to their needs and show them options which can meet their needs. Other people have a very clear idea about how they wish to live, so I help them to create designs. We discuss energy efficiency, solar gain, thermal mass and incorporate these fundamentals into the design. This way every building is unique, and this allows our city to be the fullest expression of its inhabitants, and to create an absolute unique sense of place wherever you may be. As you know – one of the major differences with this planning approach is that we switched from homogenic building stocks with heterogenous mobility routes, to a system of universal routes – so every neighborhood, vale and city has the same or similar route layout, yet every city is comprised of heterogenous building stock, so there are no homogenous housing estates and no generic office blocks. This way instead of becoming lost amongst buildings which look the same in a rabbit warren of streets and cul-de-sacs, we instead can explore and appreciate the diversity of place, as well as enjoy the intuitive navigability of the Smart Garden City. Everyone who lives in, or visits a garden city knows the way around all of the other garden cities. I kind of feel proud that I live in one of the cities that changed global navigation! From a four-point compass grid to a six-point compass grid.

Anyway, it is slightly different at the Vale to Metro City levels, where there are teams of civil architects and engineers working on the municipal designs which are informed by the participatory planning consultations. That is the other half of my job – I organize these community meetings and relay the research to the civil architects and engineers who then incorporate these into the design, and finally into the developments themselves. This is really why our buildings are so different from other cities – because we like our style here, we know our climate, we know the materials we grow, and everybody shares this passion for great design, plus the artisans love creating the details – it’s the great thing with the Garden City planning approach, it results in cultural or regional identity and this is true in every Smart Garden City right down to the vernacular, and that’s what creates such a unique experience for visitors and residents alike.

What is your favorite thing about being an architect in Dadaab?

What I love most, and in fact this is true of all the Smart Garden Cities, is how one can be working in high-tech – in an office, lab or design studio, and then go outside and be in nature – eating some lunch, surrounded by trees, flowers, flowing water and birdsong. This café is just two minutes from a bustling high street – it’s mixed-use at just the right balance and mixed-use of landscapes and architectures. I’ve been to other cities recently and they seem so homogenous in comparison it’s high-tech, and then still high-tech outside – it’s everywhere – even the parks have clean cut hard landscapes, trees are almost an afterthought or like furniture. In the garden city the landscape is an ecology and it’s alive and I think that is what keeps our minds and imagination so alive, and healthy of course – we have such clean air that mechanical air filters cannot even come close to.”

 

 

We take an overland train from Central City to Concord, one of the original satellite centres and after a short tube journey we are in District 27, affectionately named Hagadera, one of the InterVale districts which rests on the original centre of the old refugee camp. We are meeting with Papa Hujale in his family home. Papa Hujale is 89 years of age, a lifelong urban farmer, he now sits on the Council of Elders. He was born in 2011 in Hagadera Camp, part of the old Dadaab refugee complex. The original refugee camp was established over a hundred years ago in 1991 and at its peak was home to over 330,000 displaced persons. He was sixteen when the Kenyan government decided to allow Dadaab to adopt the Smart Garden City model. This was seven years after they had passed the Somali repatriation law which saw the return of over 80,000 Somalis.

Papa Hujale thank you for welcoming us to your beautiful home, and may I say, your garden is quite something!  

“Come in my Son welcome welcome, my garden is our City, I love Her and She makes us all happy! Please sit. We can drink some tea.”

Papa Hujale, you were born here, you grew up here. You have known Dadaab as a refugee settlement and lived through the transition, you have seen Her grow into a Garden City, did you ever imagine this?

“Of course! My son, when I was a small child I dreamt of living in a beautiful peaceful place, where we have clean water and food, where we can grow a garden, where the goats and chickens run free, where food is free, where my sister and mother are safe and happy and sleep well at night – this was my dream as a small refugee boy! For people to be safe and happy and to feel love. Yes, yes indeed. But I can tell you, I didn’t watch it grow, I helped it grow and we worked hard at times, but never unrewarding because we all knew what we were working towards - that dream I told you! We all shared this and that is why we worked hard for it. And every week we saw this dream becoming more and more, our reality! That is heaven manifesting! I could not wish for more – something very simple, so beautiful! That is very special.”

You said it was hard work, what was most difficult? Was it the farming work – because you were a farmer?

“The most difficult was the ‘not knowing’ – in the beginning – before we knew we were making our city. There was a lot of confusion and things were not great. The hard work was living in fear particularly the seven years before the agreement to make the city. The farming work it was always a joy – we were living out our dream and nurturing the soil and she was nurturing us a hundred-fold more!

When I was living here in a refugee camp, everything was complicated, yet mundane. Now living here in our Garden City, everything, life is simple and yet it is magnificent!”

The population has grown a lot in Dadaab, people have moved here from all over the world. In other large cities there exists unemployment and homelessness, drug and alcohol issues. Does this exist here, how does Dadaab deal with this?

“In terms of policy we have the same as other Smart Garden Cities – every person is given a home. And every person receives the Universal Income. That is why we have no poverty, and we have no homelessness. It’s a simple solution and it works – you can see! Think about this my son, Dadaab was the largest refugee camp in the world – we are familiar with adversity, we are familiar with poverty, with being rock-bottom. And we know how to pick ourselves up. When we see someone arrive “homeless” or “unemployed” we know this is just temporary – they lost their way, or something happened, they lost their mojo, but we know that some good food, good rest and good company the person is changed.”

 

Are there drug issues in the city?

“We know this feeling of depravity – this feeling of desperation – a wish to escape – we came from there and now we are found. When someone is abusing alcohol or drugs we don’t punish them, we give them a place to rest, we give them food to replenish them, and the beautiful nature of this place and its people give the remainder – people are surrounded by it – we bathe in it here –  we are happy and the whole community is caring. It is very unusual when someone is genuinely depressed we help them, plus our environment helps them – back onto their feet. This is a big part of who Dadaab is – a big part of Her egregore here – Dadaab is a wounded healer, recovered from Her wounds! So now we are just a healer!

Look at Her – Our City, She is an expression of this sublime equanimous mind. She has this radiant beauty, and it was here all the time we just uncovered it. There’s no thoughts racing around angry, worried – or hold-ups like traffic jams!

When Dadaab speaks She sings, when she walks She dance! Thank you my son, thank you peace be upon you son.”

Papa Hujale, thank you so much for welcoming us here and for sharing this delicious tea!

 

This is Dadaab today – an  enlightened city. For this week, thank you for reading and kwaheri kwa sasa from The New Garden City of Dadaab!

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Next week, for Edition 49 we will visit Lakelands Garden City which began as Burning Man Music Festival, located in the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada, in North America. We will discover how the area was transformed from arid-saline desert, to a flourishing garden city.

 

Finally, Stay tuned for Special Edition 50 where we will conclude this series by revisiting where we started – in Nouvelle Atlantide, Mauritania. We will give an update on progress in the Mauritanian Garden City located at Guelb er Richât, including the opening of the Atlas Canal, and an exclusive interview with Abbot of L'École Hermès de Sagesse Internationale as he opens the International Exhibition of Human Philosophy – Societas Naturalis. The exhibition includes  the original and signed manuscripts describing the GCoT Urban Model which defined the Smart Garden City movement. The online archive still rests at its original URL since 2014. www.circlesdesign.blogspot.fr Twitter: @FractalCities #SmartGardenCity

We look forward to celebrating this momentous occasion with you!