Colleagues working around the clock to finalise our first ever list of top cafés in Kigali, would agree with me if I predicted that at least two would be based in Kimihurura. That little hill has fast become a landmark of the city’s social life. Once a quiet neighbourhood for the chic and the well-off, it has now opened up in ways that even our most generous predictions would have laughed off.
Less than a decade ago, it was mostly expatriates (or immigrants, depending on who is speaking and how honestly) who lived in those decades-old houses with rustic finishes and large gardens. Kimihurura felt like an extension of Kiyovu, adjacent in geography and similar in temperament. But that comparison now belongs to another time.
I say this at the outset because friends who live in Kimihurura will tell you, earnestly and confidently, that it is now the hottest neighbourhood in Kigali. If you indulge them, they might even sound persuasive. Maybe they have a point.
Or perhaps not, depending on who you ask.
Most Kigali residents, I find, will say the same about their own neighbourhoods, and with almost equal conviction. Take Kicukiro, for instance. New roads almost everywhere, new apartment buildings rising with confidence, rooftop bars and restaurants multiplying. It has become a favourite among young people, who equate cranes with progress and neon signs with arrival.
Nyamirambo, too, has had paved roads for longer than a decade, and it may have seen more transformation, both visible and invisible, than most places in the city. Much of Muhima, Nyakabanda, and Kimisagara, was long defined by informal housing and absent from most accounts of the city’s growth, is also changing, though more quietly and with less applause.
Move further out and the pattern repeats itself, almost mechanically. Kabeza is now a stretch of mini-supermarkets and pharmacies, the latter appearing at nearly every building along the main road, as though illness itself were an expanding industry. Kanombe is absorbing new inhabitants at speed, anchored by an ever-expanding hospital that seems to grow in both directions at once. Kibagabaga is filling up with new apartment blocks that, taken together, threaten to make much of Kicukiro look tentative and unfinished.
Remera was once promoted as an entertainment hub, a role it has largely stepped away from. Poorly regulated nightlife and uneven quality led to a quiet reversal of that image. In its place, Remera has seen substantial physical transformation, marked by the renovated national football stadium, a new basketball arena, and the development of Zaria Court, all of which point to a different vision of urban use.
