The Challenge of Urban Evolution and Land Management in Developing Countries: Some Lessons from the City of Lagos
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Date
2020
Authors
Fasona, M.J
Ariori, N.A
Akintuyi, A.O
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Publisher
Unilag Press
Abstract
Land is a scarce resource increasingly affected by the competition of mutually exclusive uses including urban growth and provision of environmental goods and services. Although urban areas are centers of culture, civilization and innovation, unplanned and unmanaged urbanization symbolizes significant land transformation beyond the indicative capacities of the environment which breed unsustainability resulting in poor livability and vulnerability to multiple stresses and shocks. Lagos has substantially evolved as an organic, brown city with very little planning to direct its trajectory. In this study, using historico-geographic approach, we combined historical base maps with time series satellite image data to reconstruct the spatial expansion and land transformation in Lagos. From a small colonial trading and administrative outpost about 120 years ago, Lagos has grown tremendously in the last 50 years becoming Nigeria’s only megacity and all-time primate city. The Lagos urban extent grew from about 66km2 in 1962 with few urban centres to a metropolis of about 277km2 in 1994, a conurbation covering 750km2 in 2006 and a megalopolis covering about 1200.5km2 in 2015. Lagos sprawled over almost 780km2 and 1000km2 in Ogun State in 2006 and 2015 respectively. The total built-up area in the Islands of Lagos (Iddo, Eko, Ikoyi, Kuramo and parts of Lekki) increased from about 1.1km2 around 1897 to 87km2 in 2015. Most of the additional built-up lands have come from reclamation of the lagoons and wetlands. Areas covered by natural vegetation declined from 74.3km2 in 1897 to 3.3km2 in 2015. Field experience suggests that many areas with chronic flooding problems in Lagos today lie on reclaimed water and wetlands.The rapid evolution of Lagos urban today signifies the prosperity of Lagos. But its organic and amorphous growth with little thought for urban green spaces and natural ecology areas exemplified failure of planning, poor sense of nature and responsibility, and inability to learn from the past as the city evolved. It is hoped that the Lagos State Government, from now forward, will learn from the unsustainable evolution of the city in current and future reclamation efforts in order not to further push the city beyond the tipping point.
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Citation
Mayowa Fasona, Ajibade Ariori and Akinlabi Akintuyi (2020): The Challenge of Urban Evolution and Land Management in Developing Countries: Some Lessons from the City of Lagos. Chapter 17, p482-508. In RT Akinyele, TG Nubi and MM Omirin (Eds.): Land and Development in Lagos. Lagos, Nigeria: University of Lagos Press and Bookshop Ltd, NIGERIA . 716p