Oral East Africa>Eldoret City success hinges on transformation from agriculture to a creative economy At the hut of the story

Written by Brian Abwaku

For a long time, the image of Eldoret has been held as a masculine-oriented traditional mane of the historic Kalenjin warriors and rural farming community. However, today, as Eldoret gets recognition as a city today, you will likely find boldly dressed youthful Kalenjin in brightly-dyed or spiked hairstyles, colorful sunglasses, conspicuous jewelry, and outgoing jolly personalities.

In recent times, a section of society -mostly comprising of the aging population- that is still conservative and with a devoted inclination to religion, has negatively painted this creative class as ‘lazy, with a knack for short-cuts and associated gay tendencies’ due to their acquired easy demeanor.

As at today, the human population of Eldoret is at 475,716 a colossal disparity from 166,000 where it was in 1999, just before the new Millennium.

The development and growth trends for Eldoret Municipality, once known for being a marketplace (with colonial warehousing and meeting point for farmers (white settlers) from the surrounding agricultural-rich-hinterland, has its economic destiny and upgrading to City status hinged on the ingenuity of this creative class.

These seemingly unbothered and less-cultural-conscious young men and women can be seen either going about their businesses on the streets, in the form of street photography, roadside music performers, art exhibitions and sometimes patronizing popular clubs and social joints around commercial nodes and the Central Business District of Eldoret for popular concerts.

Rightfully, it can be argued that tastes in fashion and art boil down to personal preferences and choices, however, in a country with a predominantly youthful demography, there is a resounding call for recognition and special attention for this emerging and interesting social class identifiable as the creative class.

Initially, it had been inferred that the global dominance and conquest in the world of athletics by Kenyan athletes, is feted by incidentally having a majority hailing from this region. Therefore, it has been presumed that the earnings accrued from the sports were also being invested and injected in Eldoret Municipality and the surrounding suburbs.

Compounded, over time and space, it is expected to have translated into the booming cash flow and urban growth of the expansive Eldoret Municipality, as it is known today.

This is evidenced by several high-end low-density residential bungalows and contemporary architecture witnessed in areas of Kapsoya and Langas. The real estate market has benefitted from an increased demand for residential housing and office space which has attracted massive investments in mega shopping malls, apartment buildings, and uptake of sharing economy enterprises like Uber and Airbnb services.

A strong purchasing power among the population and the multiplier effect of having all these services in an urban centre, spurring agglomeration economies in several sectors.

A leading example is the health sector which has seen several public and private health facilities growing around the Moi Referral and Teaching Hospital and the academic institutions growing with reference to proximity to Moi University within the Township.

Currently, Eldoret also boasts of one of the most vibrant nightlife in the Country attributed to the entrance of new entertainment joints (Tamasha, Timba XO, Kettle House, Signature etc.) and investments from top retail-chain outlets like Carrefour, Quick Mart, Naivas, etc. spread across the span of the town.

Urban Economists have concluded that places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don’t. The key to economic growth lies not just in the ability to attract the creative class, but to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic outcomes in the form of new ideas, new high-tech businesses and regional growth.

Now, upon the conferment of City status on Eldoret on, more research and resources should be expended on physical infrastructure and governance approaches that satisfies this group’s social interests and lifestyle needs, as well as address those of other groups.

The author is an Urban Planning practitioner in Busia County.