Chapati Uber on Kahawa Sukari Avenue. [XN Iraki/Standard]
Gitunduti got a cousin in Kahawa Sukari where universities power economy
Opinion
By
XN Iraki
| Nov 26, 2025
We recently explained how Gítundúti has become a university town driven by Karatina University. My efforts to get the meaning and origins of the name Gitúndútí have not been successful.
This added to my new worry, we are entering the age of “great silence.” Emails and messages now take days to be responded to, and having a good conversation without emojis is rare.
When did someone last call you to hi, “kukujulia hali.”? It may be a sign of economic distress, citizens tamed into silence by reality. Our attention is elsewhere. One thought was that WhatsApp groups would reinvigorate intellectual conversations.
Which videos go viral on TikTok? Attention has become a scarce resource.
Enough on the great silence. Kahawa Sukari is a cousin to Gitúndútí, it’s a university town. Youngsters make the small town vibrant and dynamic.
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They lower the average age of the Kahawa Sukari estate, which is popular with the elderly. Warm weather and semi-rural?
Kenyatta University (KU) is within walking distance of Kahawa Sukari town, popularly called Engen, now a Shell petrol station, just like Kenol town, which remained Kenol despite the brand vanishing.
Students find housing around Engen, after the reforms in the 1990s, which separated accommodation from tuition in higher education. Student accommodation is a booming business.
Directly opposite KU is AMREF University and new hostels, Kwetu and Qijani. Two universities, within walking distance, make Engen a truly university town. Entrepreneurs must be feeling it, smiling.
Like Gitúndútí, we could ask for spillovers from these universities beyond accommodation.
Any new enterprises? Innovations? Patents? Beyond more customers, what makes Engen better than other towns?
In the last 20 years, more and more universities have been chartered next to towns. It’s a good experiment to see how they can stimulate the economy.
It seems for now, only through consumption, food and accommodation. Will that change to innovation? Think of California’s Silicon Valley and its universities. Has real estate gone up near universities?
Will these youngsters stay on in the university neighbourhoods after graduation and start new enterprises like in Silicon Valley?
Maybe the ecosystem has not developed enough for that. That should be the next phase, making the university the nucleus of an innovation system.
Live in a university town? Has it stimulated the economy in the surrounding community beyond accommodation? Talk to us.
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