The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Life in a slum: understanding living conditions in Nairobi’s slums across time and space
Open accessAbstract
This paper overviews the role of slums in urban Africa, focusing on Nairobi. It reveals the characteristics of slums and how these have changed over time. Spatially disaggregated data show that slum areas are very dense with poor-quality buildings, lacking access to key services such as sewage disposal and electricity. However, improvements to building quality, public-service provision, and socio-economic characteristics are mostly outpacing those seen in the formal sector. Measures such as child health and school attendance have caught up or are on pace to catch up in the near future with the formal sector, while improvements in building quality and service provision are advancing more slowly. We find significant heterogeneity across the city, and in particular that central slums look to be ‘stuck’ with low-quality buildings and poor service provision, though not with low socio-economic indicators. We explore potential explanations for why slums located on highly prized land near the centre may be stuck with poor infrastructure.
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In the citing paper
“In Nairobi, Kenya for example, the average number of habitable rooms/person decreased from approximately 0.8 in 1999 to 0.6 in 2009 among rented dwellings located in slums, while it remained constant among rented dwellings located in wealthier neighborhoods 32 .”
From Urban informal settlements as hotspots of antimicrobial resistance and the need to curb environmental transmission. (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
In the citing paper
“Compared to formal neighborhoods located a similar distance from the center of Nairobi, urban informal settlements were also approximately 10 times as dense by 2009 32 .”
From Urban informal settlements as hotspots of antimicrobial resistance and the need to curb environmental transmission. (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
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No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 19
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Cited by
Nadimpalli, M. L., Marks, S. J., Montealegre, M. C., Gilman, R. H., Pajuelo, M. J., Saito, M., Tsukayama, P., Njenga, S. M., Kiiru, J., Swarthout, J., et al. (2020) · Nature microbiology · doi:10.1038/s41564-020-0722-0 · Cited by 223
MacTavish, R., Bixby, H., Cavanaugh, A., Agyei-Mensah, S., Bawah, A., Owusu, G., Ezzati, M., Arku, R., Robinson, B., Schmidt, A. M., et al. (2023) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106253 · Cited by 23
Metadata
- Authors
- Bird, J., Montebruno, P., & Regan, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Bird, Julia
- Montebruno, Piero
- Regan, Tanner
- Venue
- Oxford Review of Economic Policy
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2017
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 496-520
- ISSN
- 0266-903X (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2121
- OpenAlex
- W2732004434
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 30.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Oxford Review of Economic Policy (publishedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
- London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
- Apollo
- Funders
- World Bank Group
- Department for International Development
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/M010341/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Urban Studies › Urban and Rural Development Challenges
- Social Sciences › Urban Studies › Latin American Urban Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
- Keywords
- slums, informal settlements, Nairobi, living conditions, construction quality, public service delivery, sanitation, electricity access, child health, school attendance, urban poverty, urban infrastructure, urban heterogeneity
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Life in a slum: understanding living conditions in Nairobi’s slums across time and space. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1093/oxrep/grx036
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- Bird, J., Montebruno, P., & Regan, T. (2017). Life in a slum: understanding living conditions in Nairobi’s slums across time and space. Oxford Review of Economic Policy. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grx036
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
