Destruction, Development and Race in Liverpool and Post-colonial Nairobi

This book examines how planning, development and race shaped the lived experiences of residents in two seemingly disparate cities in the long twentieth century. The author explores the history of urban inequality by focusing on Kibera and Everton, marginalised neighbourhoods in Nairobi and Liverpool shaped by empire and industrial capitalism. The book reveals how planning was often less a tool of reform than a mechanism of control, preserving elite privilege while failing to deliver meaningful change. Drawing on archival research, oral histories and spatial analysis, the book examines how communities resisted clearance and redevelopment, asserting agency through identity, activism, and everyday survival. From the collapse of colonial rule and the rise of African nationalism to the neoliberal restructuring of British cities, this book traces the global circuits of expertise that linked post-colonial Nairobi with metropolitan Liverpool. It interrogates the promises and failures of master plans, the politics of slum upgrading, and the enduring legacies of race and inequality. Offering a social history of urban inequality in the long twentieth century, this book will appeal to scholars interested in urban history, African studies, British social policy, and the global history of planning.