Road Corridors as Real Estate Frontiers: The New Urban Geographies of Rentier Capitalism in Africa

Abstract

This paper draws on research on infrastructure-led development and urbanisation in Nairobi to explore the new urban geographies of rentier capitalism in Africa. Under the banner of Kenya's Vision 2030 national development strategy, Nairobi's agrarian hinterlands have been transformed by major road building projects. These initiatives have catalysed a peri-urban property boom characterised by the conversion of agricultural and ranching land into urban real estate and the verticalisation of road corridors. The paper identifies four processes of land transformation driving this real estate market expansion: commodification; speculation; autoconstruction; and assetisation. Adopting a multi-scalar conjunctural approach, it argues that rentier capitalism in this context is spatialised through the dramatic extension of real estate frontiers along the route of peri-urban road corridors. Development along these corridors assumes a “grey” character that defies conventional formal–informal distinctions, enabling the extraction of large rentier profits and encouraging the further proliferation of frontier spaces.