The Role of Spatial Planning in the Environmental Management of Public Spaces of Residential Neighbourhoods in the City of Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

This study examines the role of spatial planning in securing public spaces in residential neighbourhoods whose environmental status accords a suitable place to operate in. The study focuses on the City of Nairobi where environmental quality in the public space system of residential neighbourhoods is in a degraded state. This manifests itself in problems such as solid waste accumulation, vehicular-pedestrian conflict, defective storm water drainage system, neglect of greenery and destroyed road network. The role played by neighbourhood spatial planning in countering these problems in the public spaces has not been focused on by research in the city’s built environment.

The objectives of the study involve establishing the extent of the relationship between spatial planning and environmental status, establishing how spatial planning has failed in regard to public space environmental status and how it can be made effective towards delivery of residential public spaces that are environmentally sustainable. The study employs quantitative research strategy in data collection and analysis. Quantitative data is generated from neighbourhood maps and through spatial analysis of the physical, social and economic environment of the residential public space. Fundamentally, axial spaces of the public space system in residential neighbourhoods form the specimen for detailed inquiry. In this regard, the study adopts space syntax method as the conceptual framework guiding the study. Through multiple regression analysis, the extent to which public space environmental variables are explained by spatial planning variables is established. Analysis of variance is used to test the significance of the relationship at 95 percent confidence level.

The results of the study reveal a significant relationship between spatial planning variables and environmental status variables The study establishes that spatial planning has contributed to public space environmental problems by creating public spaces that are characterized with inaccessibility from the boundaries that define them, little regard to human scale, poor distribution of public space, remarkable break-up, imbalance in the dynamic equilibrium between natural processes and the human populace, low density of settlement, homogeneity of land use functions and dominance of the car rather than the pedestrian. Further, the study establishes nine spatial planning patterns whose utilization is recommended in layout of residential neighbourhoods so as to minimize public space environmental problems and therefore enhance environmental sustainability. These patterns include relationship of public space with boundaries that constitute it, scale, connectivity, control, integration, ecological balance, land use, transportation planning and public space services. The study concludes that spatial planning plays a significant role in realization of desirable public space environments and that co-interaction of the patterns needs to be considered in layout of residential neighbourhoods in order to realize a public space system that is environmentally sustainable.