I am quite sure that this applies to all people and not just Nairobians but since they are the only people I know ,I am better off bringing that up. The other day I was listening to a Ted talk about whether we believe our decisions are our own. The speaker had a really valid point in that a company can give you three choices; one that is good ,the next that is bad and the third that would be otherwise the best. Due to the presence of the bad deal, most people would chose the the best deal which essentially makes the company more money and gives the purchaser products that they may other wise not use. This applies to a lot of things that we are manipulated into doing or using. All this can be termed into simple good marketing but when your very routines and ability to perform is under manipulation then it becomes a major problem.
I grew up in three different places but they were all at most 15 minutes from my primary school so I essentially saw the same things within a long period of time. First thing I must share is manipulation by infrastructure, it may come as a shock to most people but when you control what the people really need then they will be grateful when they can finally get it. The royalty of old have done that for centuries, this is because in order to keep people loyal and calm it may be a good idea to keep them busy with their own survival. When I was in class 5 there was a dip in the water levels at the dams and thus electricity generation hit an all time low which meant that they would have to ration electricity. For quite some time after that, people got electricity for half a day at any one time which meant that people's businesses suffered but generator companies made booming businesses. Call it speculation or anything else but I can bet big money that someone tipped them off so that they could work on their prices and ensure that they can ship in enough generators for constant supply. So now that you have made them have less disposable income then let us control their movements.
Controlling movements would basically be a problem of incompetence and redirecting funds to other programs rather than work on what is needed. The road known as outer ring road connects two major highways ( Mombasa road and Thika road). Both these roads have multiple lanes, leading in and out of town, handle a lot of traffic from long distance traveller etc. However, outer ring road may have a been forgotten for too long. The way I see it in the last twenty years, the neighborhoods that have the road as their main access road have grown at such a high rate that traffics jams are only not on the road during some unGodly hours of the night/morning. For those who have been in a traffic jams know how draining and stressful it is and thus the people it affects end up knowing that they will have to do the following list to either escape the traffic.
Leave the house extremely early to get to work on time.
Leave the office extremely late to shorten the trip.
This may sound like a lot of work but there are other options that people are not given, leave the office early enough to get home on time and just change jobs. These options are not given to people but the reason why shall be handled in a later article.
Another thing that those traffic jams ensure you are unable to do is visit the jammed neighborhoods even if they have something to offer. This is evident in Eastleigh where most people would find exactly what they need for a cheaper price but the place is quite undesirable for frequent visits. In the end of it all, so called high end shopping malls always have proper routes around them but in end you end up paying more
So we have now controlled their movements, how about we control how much disposable income they have. My first few points already explain part of what this point is trying to address. Traffic jams means more fuel consumption and health risks such as stress. Rationing and infrastructure also reduce what's in your pocket by such a large sum that I can't even list it here.
So my parting advise to people is, live within your means but also look at the big picture. The government is going to do what they want but you can do what is good for you.
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