Before 2013, the term "urban refugees" in Nigeria would have referred to the victims of government demolitions of slums in Nigeria's busiest cities, like Lagos and Port Harcourt. Last year I visited Ijora Badia, in Lagos, where 9,000 persons were displaced by a government demolition project. Read more.
The vulnerable landscape of Lagos comes from the low lying nature of the islands and surrounding land that make up the city, leaving it susceptible to flooding, an even more common occurrence due to climate change. The city started experiencing flooding in devastating proportions in 2011, when lives and properties were lost, and the streets became artificial beaches. The city felt the impact of heavy rainfall combined with rising sea levels, sinking sand-filled water spaces and inadequate drainage systems. Most flooding occurs during the rainy season (roughly six months in total) and are mostly felt by slum dwellers, who settle in swampy and poorly reclaimed areas of the coastal city with rising water levels. The OECD estimates that over three million inhabitants of Lagos will be at risk of flooding by 2070. Though the incidence of flooding in Lagos is a combination of natural and manmade factors, its occurrence is mostly preventable and can be managed. Read more or join the discussion.
Power supply, generation, and distribution are some of the many challenges facing developing nations. Lagos receives 25 percent of the power generated in Nigeria every day, but it's only enough to meet less than 10 percent of the energy demand. In response to the inadequate supply, the city government has created three running independent power project (IPP) plants that generate energy, and two more are scheduled for completion before the end of 2014. Read more.
I've written a fair bit about the housing problem in Lagos. A city of anything between 15 and 18 million persons, with a 48.6% poverty rate (2012), and an acute shortage of low-cost housing. There's of course no shortage of luxury housing. Victoria Island and Ikoyi are home to hundreds of empty luxury apartments; priced out of reach of all but the insanely wealthy. IT entrepreneur Jason Njoku has got an interesting post on the economics of housing prices in Lagos. Two years ago I wrote extensively on the Eko Atlantic City project being spearheaded by the state government, adding 9 square kilometers of reclaimed luxury territory ("the Manhattan of West Africa") to Lagos' Victoria Island. Any news of progress in terms of access to (relatively) low-cost housing is therefore much welcome. Which leads me to the focus of today's post. Read more.
I recently attended the launch of an exhibition at the Goethe Institute's Lagos office, on the "Post-Oil City", drawing on efforts from all around the world to create cities that have tamed the traditional hunger for fossil fuels. Some of them are brand new cities (like Masdar in Abu Dhabi), others are existing cities trying to make changes (Curitiba, Brazil, which in 1974 launched the world’s first BRT system). Read more.
Data has emerged showcasing the latest trends of our demographic shift - the global population now articulates a 'youth bulge'. The UN-Population Demographic Profile (2010) show children, and 'youths', comprise 1.6bn, and 1.0bn, of the population in less-developed regions. The population is younger; and Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception. Attention is now turning to youths: what young people do, what opportunities they initiate for their families and nations, and what it means to be 'young' in the developing world. However, an important caveat requires recognition: the focus has been particularly male-focused. Our understanding of girls, within both public and private spaces, remains limited. Such is the debate in this blog post - if we are now looking at 'kids' in the city and development, what are the experiences of girls? What can we learn about the city through an engendered perspective? Fundamentally, who is responsible to grant equal rights? Two models of intervention are discussed be, each using alternative methods to provide rights for girls. However, each acts to reinforce the need to improve our understandings on 'being' a girl. Read more.
Lagos is on the cusp of a radical change in the way the city is organised. Not only is the first light rail being built in the city, thirty years after the idea was first mooted; the government has also recently announced that construction will soon start on the 4th Mainland Bridge, long overdue by many standards. A few years ago I listened to a talk by the designers of that bridge, and was fascinated by how they envisioned it to not only work as a conventional bridge but also a direct stimulant/supporter of economic activity. The design is of a two-level bridge, the upper one for vehicular movement, the lower one for a combination of a tram line, rows of shops and goods vendors, and a pedestrian lane; that idea informed by the realization that modernizing Lagos does not have to happen at the expense of the trademark hustle-and-bustle that gives the city its peculiar character and feel; the things that make Lagos Lagos. Read more.
Lagos is the most populous city state in Nigeria, home to over five percent of the nation's 166 million residents, and ever growing. To manage this large group of people and to create an environment that is not only safe and accommodating but also filled with opportunities for improved living and continuous growth, the state government and various civil society organisations have spent 2013 working on a number of ingenious projects to achieve these goals. Read more or join the discussion.
Within development studies a shift has been identified. An increasing sense of consciousness has emerged on whose ideas are being used to theorise development practice, whether they are applicable, and offer effective solutions. The post-development school of thought is centred on deconstructing 'universal' ideas of development. Novel viewpoints have emerged which are transforming how the 'developing' world is understood and what role citizens of the Global South can play. With post-development thought, urban researchers, and planners, are advancing new thinking to plan inclusive cities in the Global South. In a succeeding event on urbanisation at the African Research Institute, the subject matter was how urban planning in Africa is adapting for the future. Read more.
According to the 2010 sentinel survey of Nigeria, Lagos has an HIV prevalence rate of 5.1 percent. The survey shows that the majority of the state's HIV presence is in urban areas; the rural prevalence is only 1.3 percent. In light of the high and growing HIV prevalence in Lagos, a number of agencies, private firms and civil society organisations are working hard to spread the word about HIV prevention and to care for patients. Read more or join the discussion.
