A Long Term Analysis of Internal Migration and Climate Change as Drivers of Urban Growth and Slum-Like Housing in Kenya

Abstract

Over 1.1 billion urban residents live in unacceptable conditions, lacking access to clean water, durable housing, and adequate sanitation. However, the drivers of this growing problem have been understudied due to a lack of granular data tracking the populations living in such conditions and their drivers. This dissertation fills these gaps by developing a dataset using four censuses for Kenya that tracks urban populations living in slum-like conditions and the drivers of urban population growth across urban centres from 1989 to 2019. This dissertation shows that the contribution of natural increase to urban population growth is larger than net in-migration in many urban centres and that the growth in urban centre populations living in slum-like housing is more strongly associated with natural increase. This dissertation also shows that climate change is a significant driver of net in-migration towards urban centres, potentially deepening the deficit of adequate urban housing in Kenya.