Lagos

Lagos, Nigeria

Population estimated 21 million (2010)

Lagos is suffering from many problems, most of which have stemmed or become worse due to Lagos being the largest city in Nigeria. Problems are as follows:

Overcrowding - lead to people living in Makoko, a slum on water
Crime and conflict
Drought leads to migration into Lagos - increase in population and slum-livers
Corrupt police force - not using power for good
Space is high value and limited
Coastal erosion - 25-30m a year
World famous traffic jams - major pollution - climate change
Supply of power is unreliable - long power cuts
Overwhelmed infrastructure
Clean water is hard to come buy
Children need to pay for a space in schooling which should be free
60% rubbish is dumped
Many people live on the dumpsites
Rising sea levels - sea water contaminating water supplies

The Nigerian government have their hands full trying to reduce the pollution and legally house rapidly growing population with nowhere to live but unsightly slums and provide jobs to make Lagos a more civilised and controlled city. They try to deal with the problems by:

Promised free clean water to all
Education for children to be free
Rapid bus networks to help reduce traffic jams, and quicker access to city
Re-home people and provide temporary accomodation to those whose homes needed to be destroyed in order to advance infrastructure
Improved / Re-opened train networks
New infrastructure to reduce emissions by 40%
Maximise spacial potential (eg. homes etc)

What do I think about the solutions?

The solutions seem to be ideal for Lagos's situation, and the promises appear to be well thought out and planned. However in reality, these promises are empty. So many residents are forcibly removed from their homes to them helplessly watch as they are bulldozed to the ground, leaving them with nowhere to go. Families living on the rubble left behind, not being relocated as they were told they'd be. Unnaceptable. I don't see how their government can stand by and let that happen.

Evidently, they need the space to improve infrastructure, but they should be following through with the promises they made to the people who rely on them. Some officials seem to truly believe that people are being helped, even though they aren't; which suggests that communication between officials and the poeple is poor, or undervalued.

Re-opening the train networks I think would really help the surrounding areas, with people commuting into the city. This could provide more job oppertunities, not just for rail employees, but also allowing people who otherwise would not have had access to jobs. This would greatly increase the economy of surrounding areas, so more people can afford to send their children to schools. Because despite the government sayin education should be free, people have to pay for their children because of overcrowding in the classrooms.

Makoko - The slum on water

The path to becoming a World City is a tough one. In what way does rapid urbanisation help and hinder development into a World City?

Rapid urbanisation helps development because it means that the government put more finances into building more housing for the incoming amounts of migrants. If the population increases, then infrastructure must be improved so that people can access all areas of the city, suburbs (which often grow when more people enter cities) and slum areas; allowing for commuting to work and better transport links for all. Lagos are trying to acheive this by re-opening their train lines, to create a direct transport link into the city centre, through the slums and outer city.

Also, as more people move into cities, the cultural diversity will increase; although different cultures are likely to cluster into sections of the city and create their own community. Obviously, the more residents in a city, the larger the overall workforce, and an increased demand for goods and supplies. This will result in businesses having full staff positions, more demand for their goods, and the knock on effects will increase the economy in the direct area, as well as the area the supply comes from, thus a positive effect chain reaction is formed.

However, rapid urbanisation can hinder development greatly is not handled correctly. This can be effected by the natural geography of the area, for example Mumbai is restricted as it is an island, and a lot of the outskirts are overwhelmed by the slums, so the city is surrounded on three sides by water, and the other side from a slum city. If a city has a lot of space to spread out it can help as there will be room to build new housing of varying quality; as well as space to improve and/or extend transport links. An example of expanding links, is when the London underground extended their Picadilly Circus line in 1933 so that it included the recent growth in the suburban area. Unfortunately, many cities are geographically restricted, so this tactic is unsuitable and would be unaffective.

Another issue with a fast increase in population is that it will result in more people travelling in cars, and more traffic; this is a problem because 30% road accidents occur in urban areas, and if there are a huge number of road users, this percentage can easily shoot up. As many people will be working in the centre of a world city, transport links are vital to the running of an efficient city. Accidents are not the only concern, masses of traffic means a huge amount of pollution from the emissons, which contribute greatly to climate change. In the long term, these emissions are raising the temperature and melting ice-caps etc, and raising sea levels. Sea level rises mean that more and more land is being lost to the sea, and if a city is located in a low lying area (such as Lagos) then they could be greatly impacted by this. As it happens, Lagos is under great threat from the rising sea levels; their coastline is being eroded, in some places up to 25-30m a year! In addition, the sea waters are beginning to contaminate their clean water supply, which causes many issues with the population. Emissions can also have negative health consequences, such as increased amount of people who suffer with asma and breathing difficulties.

In an ideal world, when a city encounters rapid urbanisation, it would result in people moving to the outskirts, and more communities popping up in the surrounding areas. Regrettably, in developing countries, when people move to cities for work and/or because of climate disasters such as drought, they are very likely to begin to live in illegal slum settlements, with poor sanitation, low life expectancy and low job oppertunities. Sadly, this means that when more and more people arrive at the cities, all the jobs and houses are gone (due to the large population, as it is a world city), and they have no choice but to scrape by a living in the slums. Ofte they become stuck in a poverty cycle. Despite their trying circumstances, you often find that communities will group together and help other families, to gain more security and supplies from being a group.

Overall, I think that rapid urbanisation into a world city will only assist development if the city is in a developed country already, or if the developing country have structured plan to assist the growth and development. If the developing country do not manage the influx of people, slums will grow and spread, taking up all the potential growing space from the city. By having management schemes in place (such as cheap accomodation, more unskilled job oppertunities and schools), and having a large workforce to apply and build all the new changes, the city will only have minor setbacks rather than a large percentage of the population living in slum dwellings; being unable to get out.

With 20 million inhabitants, Lagos is the economic hub of Nigeria. The shanty town of Makoko, a stone's throw from the modern buildings of the city centre, is an embarrassment. 100,000 people live there with no running water or electricity. The authorities dream of turning Lagos into an ultra-modern city, like Dubai. But this is bad news for one fishing community at the heart of the city.