Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city, is also considered one of its worst. Failing infrastructure, economic instability and chronic crime mean that the expansion of the city has not brought prosperity to its citizens. Managing the crisis requires a historical understanding of the political and economic forces that have shaped the development of Lagos.

A paper in the Journal of Urban Studies seeks to understand the power structures, economic processes and social tensions that continue to affect Lagos even after Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999. The United Nations estimates that Lagos will have a population of 17 million by 2015. But with about 200 different slums, chronic water shortages, a non-existent sewerage system, traffic congestion, violent crime and average incomes of under US$1 a day, the city faces immense challenges.

Like many large and growing cities in the developing world that have been unable to provide basic infrastructure such as water, housing and public transport, Lagos is desperately in need of effective urban government. But the current focus on “good governance” through the involvement of civil society fails to consider why Lagos has developed the way it has. The paper considers how colonial patterns of ‘authoritarian governmentality’ have persisted in the post-colonial period. Urban problems were repeatedly framed in terms of ‘public order’ rather than the consequences of poverty or chronic underinvestment.  Existing political and economic weaknesses in the post-colonial state were made worse by the conversion of Nigeria into a ‘petro-economy’ with widespread de-industrialisation and rising levels of unemployment.

Examining the historical development of Lagos, the author focuses on the state’s failure to provide adequate physical infrastructure such as water and sanitation systems for a variety of economic and political reasons.  Despite the failure of the Nigerian state to effectively tackle these problems, however, he argues that the state continues to play a vital coordinating role for urban development.

The author identifies three key stages in the development of Lagos:

• Urban planning in colonial times was based on an ‘incomplete modernity’ with a growing divide between prosperous European or commercial enclaves and declining conditions in the rest of the city.
• The optimism of the immediate post-independence era in the early 1960s soon faded in the face of political instability, civil war, mass migration and the destabilising effects of oil wealth.
• With the return to civilian rule in 1999 civil society organisations have become more active, encouraged by the spread of internet use and press freedom. But urban problems remain formidable in the absence of effective urban government and the chronic lack of financial investment in social and environmental infrastructure.

The article draws three main conclusions for the future of Lagos:

• The state must play a central role in building a public sector that functions above vested interests and narrowly market-based approaches to urban development, which neglect poorer parts of the city.
• More effective urban government will require institutional reforms including law, taxation and organisational regulations along with new codes of professional conduct, transparency and accountability.
• Building better infrastructure networks will help to overcome the worsening social, ethnic and religious divisions that threaten economic and political reform.

Source(s):
‘Planning, Anti-planning and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos’, Urban Studies, Vol.43, No.2, pages 371-396, by Matthew Gandy, 2006. Full document.
‘Learning from Lagos’ New Left Review 33, 37-53, by Matthew Gandy, 2005. Full document.
‘Rethinking urban metabolism: water, space and the modern city’, City 8 (3), 371-87, by Matthew Gandy, 2004. Full document.

Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council

id21 Research Highlight: 09 November 2006

Further Information:
Matthew Gandy
Department of Geography
University College London
26 Bedford Way
London WC1 0AP, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 5517 Fax +44 (0) 20 7679 7565
Contact the contributor: m.gandy@ucl.ac.uk

Geography Dept, University College London

Other related links:
'As poverty urbanises, can cities become sustainable, equitable and productive?'

'Making city growth work for poor people'

The State and Local Government Programme, Nigeria