Living in a Ghost Town

There was a video I once watched about some guy who bought an old mining town and starting living there alone. It was quite remote and it goes through the story of how he makes it habitable.

I have watched other channels that portray the same concept of getting a piece of land or an abandoned town and making it a living and breathing community. Such a project is wonderful as it brings fresh beginnings to the people involved and the area in question.

I have noticed places like those in Kenya. One town was called Endau, which is in Kitui County. We went there during the fuuneral of Aunty Tabitha's sister. It was quite far but it was great experience to see somewhere so remote, slow and desolute. It was really dry and the dust would attach to the sweat of your skin. Not to mention the heat. The area reminded me of Tsavo National Park. Generally, that area of Kitui, Makueni and Machakos are dry. I cannot remind my geography but it has something to do with the fact that it is a plateau and there are no major faultlines or volcanic activity to have mountains, rivers and other watch-catchment areas. Geography is interesting, especially Kenyan Geography. Kenya is Beautiful.

Anyway, I would like to build a Startup City or town for like-minded people to come together and build a great community. We can start from scratch and build out a new society. We can look into the following:

  1. Infrastructure
    • Housing structures
    • Power generation and transmission
    • Water catchment, treatment and recycling
    • Transportation for goods and people
  2. Economic Activities
    • Farming - Subsistence and Commercial
    • Trading with local communities
    • Food proceesing and value addition
    • Low-value manufacturing like soap, rope .etc
    • Remote-working services in ICT
  3. Social Activities
    • Sports and Games
    • Arts and Crafts
    • Innovation Workshops in STEM
  4. Governance
    • Security
    • Dispute Resolution
    • Management of public goods

It can be an interesting adventure. However, people will ask why do such a thing when you can live in the city. Well, I would say that it is great to have a new place for people to come together and build together. It is the reason that startups have campuses. They want their people to come together in one place and build together. Refer to Building a Startup Campus

However, the major drawback is the remoteness of the place, which can cause problems with logistics, communication and basic amenities like water and power and even the serendipitous benefits of being in a city. On the serendipity, it is foolish to deny that having millions of people living in a city leads to better ideas being generated on how to build startups, run government, provide great basic amenities and so on. Overall, living in city gives you a wider set of people to trade with, share ideas with and grow together with.

Even if I want to go out of Nairobi, I still want to develop this city of mine into a great city. It is only if Nairobi thrives that I will thrive in this country. There is no other town in Kenya or even Africa that I am more connected to and can best build solutions for. Sure, I can go and live in Rwanda or Nigeria or South Africa but those places are not my home. Nairobi is home and it has great potential for growth. We have a great tech scene, great political climate, a sizable middle-class, great weather, amazing amenities, educated population, amazing entertainment and so much more. That's why white people and Chinese want to come to Nairobi, they know it is the shit.