‘Almost a City”: Understanding and Planning for Refugee Movement to the City Informed

Using reports and existing knowledge of refugee experiences in camps and the city of Nairobi, Kenya, this paper provides a conceptual and theoretical understanding of the propensity for refugees to move towards the city and the effects of this migration pattern. [...] It characterizes refugees as the following: [Individuals] owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being o. [...] Therefore, the choice to live in the city, specifically Nairobi, by refugees is a sacrifice of the access to “legal protection or material assistance” that the formal sector in the camps provide (Campbell, 2006, p. [...] An evident success of this is the community of Eastleigh, Nairobi that was transformed from residential housing to a commercial space by the occupation and management of Somali refugees in the 1990s; it’s entrenchment in the informal economy nurture a space that provide employment opportunities for refugees (Campbell, 2006, p. [...] Eastleigh’s economic emergence is due to the class status 11 of the Somali refugees that initially began the commercialization of the space most of whom are wealthy and have “entrepreneurial experience and capital” (Campbell, 2006, p.