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Large-scale private landlordism dominates low-income housing provision in Nairobi, with extreme residential densities in districts where rooming tenements reach seven floors above ground. This trend differs from the small-scale private landlordism, predominantly with owner occupation, which has been documented for the developing world. Nairobi's large-scale multi-storey private rental has remained unmentioned in housing and tenure literature on the developing world. The terms ‘tenement’ and ‘tenement city’ are largely associated with nineteenth and early twentieth century rental investment in Europe and the US when cities were shaped by the profit-making interests of landlords. In this article, two case studies of tenement areas in Nairobi, low-income Huruma and middle-income Umoja Inner Core, are analysed in terms of the evolution of the tenement investment and current residential densities. The ongoing, mostly unauthorized construction of tenements suggests that Nairobi could be termed a tenement city, a reality that is not currently addressed by the urban discourse.
