Planning, Anti-planning and the Infrastructure Crisis Facing Metropolitan Lagos

Abstract

Many of the 'mega cities' of the global South face an escalating crisis in the adequate provision of basic services such as water, housing and mass transit systems. Lagos-the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa-exemplifies many of these challenges but has tended to be viewed within a narrow analytical frame. In this essay, 'exceptionalist' perspectives on the African city are eschewed in favour of an analysis which frames the experience of Lagos within a wider geopolitical arena of economic instability, petro-capitalist development and regional internecine strife. An historical perspective is developed in order to reveal how structural factors operating through both the colonial and post-colonial periods have militated against any effective resolution to the city's worsening infrastructure crisis. It is concluded that a workable conception of the public realm must form an integral element in any tentative steps towards more progressive approaches to urban policy-making in the post-Abacha era and the return to civilian rule.