Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
A balance needs to be struck between private
rights and public interests in the planning
system. How should planning operate and
what effects will it have?
Box 21.4
Lagos
Lagos Is the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa and rapidly
growing in population. The 5-6 million people in Lagos
state generate 20 per cent of Nigeria's GNP, and the city
has become a magnet for Nigerian and foreign migrants.
The city is characterised as thriving, expensive, corrupt,
chaotic and exciting. Given its high cost of living, poor in-
migrants congregate in slums and squatter settlements
(though many fewer of the latter than in Latin American
and East African cities), many being on the edge of the
city. The way that urban-fringe land is transferred to urban
uses mirrors other aspects of Nigerian society. There is a
planning system based on the Town and Country
Planning Ordinance of 1946, which in turn is based on a
UK planning act of 1932, the latter being so ineffective
that it was replaced in the UK but still has influence in
Nigeria. Planning is very limited, a low national priority
and poorly staffed. The Land Use Decree (1978) and the
Land Use Act (1980) have not helped (as was hoped) in
bringing forward land for development and curtailing land
hoarding and speculation. There is a general lack of
resources for infrastructure throughout the country but
particularly on the fringe, and this has been exacerbated
by the devaluation of the Nigerian currency and the
shortage of skilled building workers. Hence there is a lack
of water supplies, rubbish collection, roads, electricity and
drains; overcrowding and ill-health are notable features.
There is no national sense of the need to limit the growth
of Lagos or to preserve periurban farmland and
landscapes. Yet the release of land for housing is not
random, since housing the very poor very inadequately
can still be a profitable activity. Land release is controlled
quite directly by politicians and is marked by clientism and
patronage, and by the exchange of money, in which
senses it reflects common practice in life and business in
Nigeria. Indeed, the hope of development (as much as
actual development) consolidates local leaders' powers.
Development tends to be fragmented and ribbon-like
along the roads. The rate of development is inadequate to
meet the needs of the current urban fringe population, let
alone the new in-migrants. There are groups for whom it
is in their financial and political interests to ensure that
some under-provision at the fringe continues.
5
Are there acceptable and unacceptable uses of
the urban fringe? If there are, how do you
allocate land uses to meet these judgements?
And on what basis do you form this
judgement?
6
What is to be the balance between local and
national requirements for the urban fringe?
7
The provision of transport facilities and the
level of personal mobility greatly affect the
pressures for development at the fringe.
The resolution of these issues will set the
parameters within which each city will regulate
its fringe. Hence, despite the general principles,
every urban fringe will be different and the
geographer will have to unravel how each city
reached its current state and how it might evolve
in the future.
CONCLUSIONS: A PROSPECTIVE VIEW
OF USEFUL APPLIED GEOGRAPHICAL
RESEARCH
When it comes to land-use conflicts at the urban
fringe, how can the geographer be 'useful', and
what should applied geographical research
comprise? The applied geographer has four
possible roles, which are not mutually exclusive
but are distinct. He/she can be a gatherer of
information, an interpreter of situations, a
forecaster of events or an advocate for a cause:
Source:
Piel 1991; Taylor 1993.
•
The
gatherer of information
is the geographer
who collects details on, for example, land-use
and landscape changes, the evolving social
composition of villages, and the rate of
migration. Without such spatially referenced
detail, informed debate and planning will be
impossible. The geographer's task, perhaps
using geographical information systems and
survey techniques, is to inform all who are
concerned exactly what is happening at the
urban fringe.
fringe will vary between cities and will not
be fully predictable.
3
Who is to profit from land development at
the city edge—the landowner, the politician,
the state or some combination of these? The
answer to this question will influence how the
urban fringe evolves.
4
Is the urban fringe to be contained or
managed in a formal public way? If it is, there
will have to be some kind of planning system.
