Kenya’s population growth is slowing in cities and towns

Eastleigh, a neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a thrumming hive of hawkers, honking cars, belching lorries, potholed pavements, jostling pedestrians and legions of young men loafing around, clearly out of work. “Too many cars, too many people,” tut-tuts Charles Mwangi, a taxi driver from another part of the sprawling city, which overall has grown in population from 361,000 at independence in 1963 to some 5.3m today.Eastleigh is the urban hub of ethnic Somalis, who make up nearly 6% of Kenya’s population and are among its fastest expanding groups. At last count, women in the mainly Somali counties of the arid north-east, many of whom drift into the city, still on average bear more than seven children each. This rate is common elsewhere across northern Kenya, where drought, conflict and poverty dangerously persist. It is also high in some parts of the west, near Lake Victoria, where polygamy among some groups is still common.