When you work in a city such as Nairobi, focus is required. Not just on your next meeting, the building you are visiting or where you are going for lunch, but on what is going on around you, what’s up ahead, what could be around the next corner.
After spending three days in the Kenyan capital last week researching the country’s growing property market, it struck me how alert and aware you become when operating in an environment where violent crime is a constant threat – where armed guards patrol the entrance to every office, mall and hotel. And then I realised just how unaware we have become in the UK, particularly in London. Have we been lulled into a false sense of security? Have we entered a zombie state where we wander around totally oblivious to what is happening around us and up ahead – both as we go about our everyday lives and, on a larger, more worrying, scale, when it comes to the future of the property market?
It’s amazing how quickly you can veer into zombie territory when you feel safe enough to tune out of the world around you. This only hit me when, in Nairobi’s city centre, that switched-off state never came. It’s hard to zone out when you have to walk through metal detectors every 10 minutes, have your bag ready for inspection at all times, or wait in a line of traffic as Kenyan officials run mirrors on metal poles underneath every vehicle that approaches shopping centres and offices.
The constant reminder of danger keeps you alert and, while locals and ex-pats say security has been stepped up in the capital after the Westgate shopping centre massacre last September – an atrocity that resulted in 64 people being murdered by terrorists in a three-day siege – the armed guards, sniffer dogs and spot checks were standard before the attack.
One of the biggest differences – and possibly the biggest distraction here in the UK – is technology. No one in Nairobi would even think about getting a mobile phone out to send a text or e-mail while walking around. In London, we merrily roam about crashing into fellow pedestrians as we navigate busy pavements, eyes down and oblivious. Sometimes not even crossing a main road raises enough alarm in our zombie-like brains to focus them on the potentially fatal task at hand.
What is terrifying is that it has already started to feel as though we are taking the same sort of approach to the property market. It’s easy to be cautious and alert at first – when memories of previous danger and pain are still fresh. And as the sector picks up, there are plenty of warnings: “we’ve been here before”, “it will happen again”, “what goes up must come down”.
But the reality is that once the market starts to feel steadier, these reminders will fade, leaving us free ?to coast along, feeling ?really rather safe. Safe enough to zone out of the world around us.
The only hope is that perhaps this time, with so many UK firms looking to emerging markets, such as Kenya, where there is clear and present danger – both ?in terms of everyday living and doing business – just enough people will return having been jolted out of their trance to keep the ?fears alive and the UK market alert.
? See next week’s Estates Gazette for part one of our Africa special
Emily Wright is EG‘s features editor
