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University of California Press
Open Access

No Place Like Home in a New City

Anti-Urbanism and Life in Nairobi

by Bettina Amilie Ng'weno (Author)
Price: $95.00 / £80.00
Publication Date: Aug 2025
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9780520423206
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 20 color illustrations, 3 maps

About the Book

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Nairobi, known as the Green City in the Sun, has taken shape through anti-urban ideologies that insist that the city cannot be home for most residents. Based on decades of experience in rapidly changing Nairobi, No Place Like Home in a New City traverses rivers, cemeteries, parks, railways, housing estates, roads, and dancehalls to explore how policies of anti-urbanism manifest across time and space, shaping how people live in Nairobi. With deeply personal insights, Bettina Ng’weno highlights how people contest anti-urbanism through their insistence on building life in the city, even in the current dynamic of ubiquitous demolition and reconstruction. Through quotidian practices and creative resistance, they imagine alternatives to displacement, create belonging, and build new urban futures.

About the Author

Bettina Ng’weno is Professor of African American and African Studies at the University of California, Davis and author of Turf Wars: Territory and Citizenship in the Contemporary State. She was born in Nairobi.