Date of Award

6-2013

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Geography

First Advisor

Dr. Benjamin Ofori-Amoah

Second Advisor

Dr. Kathleen Baker

Third Advisor

Dr. Rebecca Harvey

Keywords

satellite town, new town, mega cities, Lagos, congestion

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

One of the major challenges facing municipal governments of megacities in developing countries is shortage of urban infrastructures relative to population growth. Because cities play important role in the economic development of every nation, problems confronting them require proactive policy measures by the government. One such mega city is Lagos, Nigeria. From 1962 to 2006, the population of Lagos grew from 1,135,805 to 17.5 million. Crammed on a 2200 square kilometer land area of which 18.9%, Lagos population is projected to reach 20.5 million by 2015, an explosion largely driven by the non-regulatory internal migration system. The result of this has been a persistent problem of housing crisis, vehicular congestion, environmental pollution and the spread of slums with the associated high crime rate. In 1981 the Lagos State New Town Development Authority (NTDA) was established to create new towns in order to manage the growth of Lagos and decongest the metropolitan area. This idea was borrowed from the UK, among other countries. The history of new town development globally has been that of a mixed outcome and the three decades of new town development in Lagos has also not produced any real impact on infrastructural development and spatial socio-economic equity in Lagos. The central question of this project therefore is to what extent has the Lagos new town project solve the infrastructural and congestion problems confronting Lagos mega city? Survey was designed to get the opinion of the Lagos new towns residents about the effectiveness of the new town policy. Outcome of the analysis shows that three decades of new town development efforts has not helped to achieve spatial socio-economic equity, decongestion and infrastructural adequacy in Lagos.

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