More Map of Nairobi Rectified and Kigali vs. Nairobi

This week I rectified three more maps of Nairobi. I like the maps that I was assigned because of how well they fit together. Individually they all look great, but together as a whole, they really paint the bigger picture and it looks phenomenal. I'm only about halfway done with all the rectified maps, but still, they look beautiful. Take a look!

This weeks three additional maps together. They are of the Thompson, Kilimani, Upper Hill, and Hurlingham Estates.

This is of the Hurlingham Estates with a little of the Kilimani and Upper Hill Estates.

This is mainly of the Thompson and Kilimani Estates.

This is mainly of the Kilimani Estates, with a little of the Upper Hill Estates 

All six of my rectified maps so far overlaid.

Next, we were asked to compare two rectified cities with your own. I was only given one city besides Kigali, so I am going to compare Nairobi with Kigali spatially. Now, the overall pictures of Kigali and Nairobi are pretty different.

Kigali

Nairobi at the same scale.

Now comparatively, we can already see a lot. Discounting color, since satellite pictures are hardly accurate when it comes to color, we can see that Nairobi is far larger than Kigali. The city spans almost the entire screenshot versus Kigali which takes up a small proportion. Interestingly enough, the land allotted to Kigali is just a bit bigger than the land allotted to Nairobi. That shows that Kigali has hardly expanded and has a long way to go to reach its limits. There can obviously be a multitude of factors which constricts Kigali from expanding. The biggest one is its terrain, since Kigali is in a valley between a few mountains. That makes building more difficult. Nairobi, however, is relatively flat. Now given that information, let's consider the population. Kigali is almost at a million inhabitants. Nairobi on the other hand, has roughly three million. Nairobi is three times the size in population! That is absolutely incredible. Yet the population density of Kigali seems way higher than Nairobi. Let's examine a closer picture.

Figure 1: Roadmap of a neighborhood in Kigali.

Figure 2: Satellite image of the exact same picture as Figure 1. 

Figure 3: A terrain view of a neighborhood in Kigali. It is NOT the same neighborhood as Figure 1 and 2.

Figure 4: Roadmap of a neighborhood in Nairobi. It is the exact same scale as Figure 1 and 2.

Figure 5: Satellite view of the exact same picture as Figure 4. 

Figure 6: A terrain view of a neighborhood in Nairobi. It is NOT the same neighborhood as Figure 4 and 5. It is the exact same scale as Figure 3.

So looking at Figure 2 and 5, we have a satellite image at exactly the same scale of two neighborhoods--one is Kigali and another in Nairobi. My first instinct is to say that Nairobi seems to be much more spread out in regions, with trees in yards. But it also has some really densely packed neighborhoods. It seems that there is a stark contrast in the wealthy and the poor in Nairobi. Though I cannot tell if it is gated, it almost looks like one part is a gated community while the other is not. You can tell immediately by just how green the area is. Looking at Kigali however, we immediately notice how densely packed everything is. Even some of the least densely packed areas of Kigali are more densely backed than the most densely packed areas in Nairobi. This all despite the fact Kigali has a population a third of Nairobi, though the geography forces them to live quite densely. Additionally, it looks like Nairobi has a lot more green space. Not necessarily greenery, but spaces that are simply meant for parks or fields. Kigali has very little of those spaces, oddly enough, given the perfect weather and soil there.

The next two figures I compared were Figure 1 and Figure 4. These are the two roadmap images of the same neighborhoods of Figure 2 and 5. I was interested in the roadmaps because I wanted to see how the streets were organized. It says a lot about a city by whether the streets are small, narrow and short, or if they are large and broad. It says a lot whether they're gridded or if they're all over the place. Looking at Kigali, we see that the streets aren't necessarily gridded, but they are organized in a very orderly fashion. However, the streets are almost aways curving. Very few of them are actually straight. The streets are generally quite long, but the space between streets are quite narrow. To contrast Kigali, Nairobi has very square streets. Similarly though, I would not say it is necessarily gridded, but there does seem to be some order to it. But the most important point to notice is that the streets do not curve as much. Streets are shorter and spaces between straights are larger than Kigali. I was curious as to why that was, so that's why I wanted to examine Figure 3 and 6.

Figure 3 and 6 are terrain maps of two neighborhoods in Nairobi and Kigali, both at the same scale. Now this map sheds so much light on to why Kigali and Nairobi streets are organized the way they are. If you look at Kigali's streets, the streets follow the terrain of the mountains and hills. Evidently, it is much easier to pave a road that is tangent to the contour line rather than perpendicular. That is why the streets seem to wrap around the terrain. That is also why they are longer but have less space in between them. Nairobi is relatively flat. It's not entirely flat, but for the most part they have freedom to pave streets whichever way they want. That explains why it looks much more gridded than Kigali does. Streets can be short, or long, curved or straight. And clearly, Nairobi has designed streets that vary in all shapes and sizes.