Urban Growth And Planning In Lagos

There is little existing literature on African cities and African urban planning in China,which is still a virgin land for Chinese scholars.With continuing population growth and urbanisation,the global population size and spatial distribution are undergoing profound changes,and by 2050,66 percent of the world’s population is projected to be urban,adding 2.5 billion new urban residents to the world,with nearly 90 percent of the growth concentrated in Africa and Asia.Africa,the least urbanized continent,is urbanizing much faster than the rest of the world.The rapid urban growth,as a key feature of African cities,signals a major challenge to their urban planning and growth management.The effective development control and management of urban growth,to a large extent determines the success of the sustainable development agenda across the continent.Focusing on the most populous city in Sub-Sahara Africa – Lagos in Nigeria,the thesis explores its urban growth and urban planning from both historical and spatial perspective.The pattern and dynamics of urban growth are analyzed in both qualitative and quantitative methods.A hybrid multi-layer perceptron and Markov chain analysis model is adopted to analyze the urban growth in Lagos metropolitan region and predict future land use changes in 2030 and 2050,showing the amount and location of probable changes spatially and quantitatively.Urban planning system and its performance in urban growth management are examined through an in-depth review of development plans and development control process in Lagos.It found that Lagos has experienced explosive growth since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.Its population increased from 25,000 in 1866 to 665,000 in 1963.By 1995,Lagos surpassed the 10 million population mark,and is now the fastest growing megacity in the world.Meanwhile,the megacity has grown right beyond the boundary of Lagos State and has extended into the adjoining Ogun State since 2000.It is projected that by 2050 the built-up area of Lagos metropolitan region will exceed 2000 km2 and 75.81% of the growth will occur beyond the boundary which is yet to be incorporated into the comprehensive development plan of Lagos State.The rapid growth trend of Lagos megacity will continue in the future,and the Great Ibadan-Lagos-Accra will become a major region for population agglomeration and urban growth on the continent.Lagos is currently characterized by low-rise,high-density land development.Most new built-up lands are residential,while lands for other uses,such as road and transportation,commercial and institutional use,green land and open space are inadequate.The redevelopment of government reserved area(GRA)is driven by investment from private sector,characterized by high-intensity commercial and mixed land development.The inner city presents features of a collage and fragmented city mainly due to its complex and ad hoc planning and development history.The suburbs on the outskirt of Lagos metropolis are growing dramatically due to continuous immigration;however,most of those suburbs are sleeping cities with massive high-density informal residential settlement.The megacity is facing severe challenges in land use control,development density and intensity control,infrastructure decay,housing shortage,etc.Described as a “laissez faire” megacity,Lagos is yet to achieve a functional modern city.The paper argues that to build a sustainable model megacity,the following points need to be examined carefully.First,Nigeria still has a long way to go in terms of capacity building in planning administration and law enforcement.Till now,National Urban and Regional Planning Commission has not been established and there is no national spatial planning framework to guide the spatial development of the whole country.Second,the current development plan in Lagos State does not cover the whole Lagos metropolitan region,leaving most of future growth out of control.It is suggested that a Great Lagos Metropolitan Region be established to integrate all possible urban growth around Lagos metropolis into one regional development plan.Third,development plans divorce from the development control procedure in many cases,revealing a huge gap between the strong bottom-up growth dynamics and the weak top-down governance capacity.Last,reform of land tenure and urban planning system is imperative to build a just and transparent institutional environment for land administration and planning management.