Inclusive cities

On December 12, 2015, the Makoko/Iwaya Waterfront Community celebrated the opening of the first neighborhood hotspot. The construction was initiated and supervised by Fabulous Urban, a Swiss architect and urban design firm, with funds from the Swiss Embassy Nigeria. Townplanner Aro Ismaila and Architect Mo Ajala completed the expert team and the community carpenters and artisans built the centre between April and September 2015.

In its efforts to increase its internally generated revenue and to be less dependent from dwindling federal resources, the Government of Lagos made several unsuccessful attempts to tax small business owners in the informal sector, writes Adeolu Adesanya. It’s through a participatory approach that the Government finally succeeded in integrating the informal sector into its taxation system.

If taken as a country on its own, Lagos would be amongst the largest economies in Africa. It has been able to diversify its economy and to considerably reduce its dependence on oil allocations. But its potentials are still huge if it invested in skilled labour force, reduced its bureaucratic hurdles and adopted an inclusive development approach.

From everyday encounters to planning considerations, Kingsley Iweka shares his reflections on the city of Lagos drawing from recent conversations at the Heinrich Boll and Nsibidi Institute’s Open City Lagos Brainstorming Brunch held in April 2015. As one of the project’s shortlisted candidates, he speaks within his personal capacity as a writer coming to terms with how the city accommodates the subjects of his prose.

Lagos is a dynamic, teeming city of over 15 million inhabitants and counting. Even with strained access to services and a housing stock far outpaced by the city’s growth, Lagos remains a magnet for those in other Nigerian states and neighboring West African countries. With an estimated 600,000 people added each year, openness appears to be a defining feature of Lagos. Yet the concept of openness encompasses more than just urban migration and the city’s ability to absorb this influx. It refers to inclusion in terms of the quality of social, economic and spatial conditions in the city.

A city without a slum??? This Eco Trio adventure highlights the reality of the Makoko slum built on the frontage of the Lagos lagoon and Points to feasible ways in which some of their problems can be addressed especially through regenerative planning… This Eco Trio adventure tells more

A local government should be the closest government to the people but in Nigeria it only has minimal implementation power. This is the experience of the organization Community Conservation and Development Initiatives (CCDI). In their climate change training programmes and various initiatives aimed at building local adaptative capacity for climate change resilience at local government level, they realized that initiatives and planned actions are constrained and hampered by poor land use planning and lack of integration of climate change factors into development agendas. In a participatory research project in Amuwo Odofin Local Government they critically analyzed the scope of actions assigned to local governments compared to state governments on existing land use policies, regulations and laws and developed a participatory risk reduction and management blue print.

Alfa Beach used to be a popular weekend destination for Lagosians, until the ocean washed it away. It destroyed not just a beach, but also the local community’s livelihood and houses. The danger has not subsided: the sea is moving into the land at an alarming pace. How can the people of Okun Alfa cope, and will they be able to organise themselves?

In an effort at expanding the space for discussions on sustainable urban development in Lagos with specific interest on how the new development in Eko Atlantic City can be made to live up to its description as a city of the future, architect and writer Ayodele Arigbabu has created a narrative located in a fictionalized version of the new city, using the experiences of a young girl visiting the city on holiday as an opportunity to learn about the challenges cities face and possible ways of making cities more livable.

A successful negotiation process against illegal evictions Lagos is growing into Africa's most populous city.  Like other fast developing cities, Nigeria's economic capital faces many challenges: how can a government provide homes, roads and public amenities to all its citizens, including villagers living along its coast who are now threatened by expanding urbanisation? Just like the poorest and most vulnerable city dwellers in the slums, they are often forgotten in the process. This series explores different strategies for their  peaceful and fair  integration into the rapid urban development.