Perhaps one of the most overlooked privileges is not wealth itself, but having enough margin in your life to respond to reality. Over the last few years, we have become fluent in the language of privilege, speaking easily about financial privilege, pretty privilege, racial privilege, passport privilege, educational privilege and social privilege, and in doing so we have become increasingly aware that people do not all start from the same place and that some doors open more easily for some than for others. Yet there is one form of privilege that seems to receive far less attention, and that is the privilege of being able to do something with the information you have, not simply knowing, but acting, because the truth is that information alone changes very little. We like to imagine that if people only knew better, they would do better, and entire industries are built around this assumption, from self-help books and documentaries to podcasts, awareness campaigns, public health initiative...
Behind every bare, fenced plot lies a story of a forest felled, a community displaced, or a species exiled. This is land speculation in Kenya. In Kenya, owning land is more than a milestone—it’s a rite of passage. Advertisements promise “affordable plots with ready title deeds,” targeting salaried urbanites and diaspora Kenyans. Entire WhatsApp groups are dedicated to the dream of landownership. But beneath the aspiration lies an uncomfortable truth: the booming land market is one of the most ethically neglected sectors in the country. 1. The Anatomy of Land Speculation in Kenya Land speculation refers to buying land not for use, but to hold it until the price appreciates. It's widespread in areas like: Nanyuki: Once a pastoralist haven, now a checkerboard of idle gated plots. Kitengela and Joska: Transformed from community settlements into dusty subdivisions. Laikipia: Where wild animals are losing corridors to migration and survival. The Diaspora Factor Foreign ...