Nairobi is a bustling city of over 3 million people, many of
whom are stuck in traffic for hours each day. One effort to
mitigate these wasteful jams involves construction of additional
motorways. But with little space specifically reserved for these
new arteries, their proposed routes involve some delicate
tradeoffs. One such road, the proposed Southern Bypass, is
planned to run along the eastern boundary of Nairobi National
Park. As presently designed, 150 acres of park land would need
to be degazetted (i.e., lost) to accommodate the new road.
Several nature conservation organizations have joined together
to oppose the project, and a pending legal action has
provisionally halted all construction. In passing, one might
understand this story as a tale of local conservation
organizations banding together to “hold the line” — protecting a
parcel of wilderness from the bulldozers of urban expansion. But
in an urban system as complicated as Nairobi, context truly
matters. Managing urban nature requires flexible a