PLANNING FOR INFORMAL ACTIVITIES

PLANNING FOR INFORMAL ACTIVITIES

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The Urban settlement over the world witness great influx of people from the rural area. These people move to the urban centres because of the basic infrastructure and services rendered. The white collar job (Formal activities) cannot cater for the increased population; as such, informal activities takes off. These informal activities if not planned and controlled, contravene the provision of the planned Urban settlement.Urbanisation is not uniform; there is huge diversity, both within regions and individual countries. The emergence of huge urban configurations can support regional economic development through improving inter-connectivity and interdependence among cities. Urban Corridors, for example, include the industrial corridor developing in India between Mumbai and Delhi, and the greater Ibadan-Lagos-Accra urban corridor - spanning roughly 600 kilometres linking Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, and provides the engine of West Africa’s regional economy. On the other hand, these fast growth and rapidly urbanising areas also contribute to unbalanced regional development as a result of strengthened urban primacy (UNHABITAT, 2010).

It is important to remember that despite their economic clout, there are relatively few large urban concentrations. Much urbanisation is actually occurring within a large number of urban centres in Africa, Asia and Latin America that lack the economic, administrative or political status normally considered for classification as a ‘city’ (Satterthwaite, 2002:15). Around two-thirds of the urban population in developing regions are in urban centres with less than 1 million inhabitants (Environment and Urbanisation, 1995, in Grant, 2010), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. There has been a rise in the number and prosperity of secondary cities across Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years too, showing that smaller cities have capacity to attract new investment away from largest cities.

There is an economic logic to where rapid urbanisation has taken place, and yet, at the same time, most urban growth is driven by natural increase with only about 25% driven by rural-urban migration. Unsurprisingly migration is more significant where countries are urbanising from a predominantly rural context, (East and Southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East). One of the reasons why urban change has been so rapid in recent decades is that it began from such a small base2. Conflict- affected countries and regions have particularly strong urban growth rates, and increasing refugee numbers are shifting from camps to cities in Africa (Sommers, 2011:319).

Net in- migration to urban centres across Africa has slowed. In Uganda, violent conflict is driving in-migration to towns in Gulu and Lira, but otherwise it has been small (or negative) component of urban growth (Potts, 2009: 354). The proportion of residents living in Niger’s 36 main towns increased just 1 per cent between 1988 and 2001, and in Benin the population share living in towns with more than 10,000 residents increased by less than 1 per cent between 1992 and 2002 (Potts, 2009) . This slowing down in in-migration does not necessarily reflect reduced population mobility but the result of a considerable increase in circular migration, resulting from negative urban experiences for large numbers of urban residents for whom there is no economic safety net (Potts, 2009).

Despite the headline figures above, there is evidence that some sub-Saharan African countries are now stagnating or urbanising very slowly (e.g. Benin, Mozambique, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger) . Circular migration is reducing the contribution of in-migration to urban growth in these countries. Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso shows very significantly that urban–rural migration streams have become less, not more, age- specific, and many young people are among those leaving the cities (Beauchemin, et al, 2004, in Potts, 2009:257). Potts (2009:254) concludes these trends reflect declining economic opportunities in many urban areas, and indicate crises in urban poverty and livelihood security.

Thus, we need to caution against straightforward interpretations of international comparison statistics on urbanisation. Satterthwaite (2002:12) argues that the world would acquire several hundred million more urban dwellers overnight if India or China were to change their definitions of ‘urban centres’ to those used by nations such as Peru or Sweden, and this would also result in most poverty in India (and Asia) becoming ‘urban’. Similarly, definitions and re-definitions of ‘urban settlements’ at the at the lower end of the urban hierarchies in Kenya and Tanzania have rendered overall growth rates and levels reported in censuses ‘extremely misleading (and exaggerated) in recent decades’ (Potts, 2009:254). Regional and international generalisations are not straight forward, a point that requires recognition greater than a footnote.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Abuja is the current capital of Nigeria and it’s located in the North Central region of the country. At the creation of Abuja, the government of Nigeria sought the idea of the city as seat of government, a place of and a symbol of unity, a melting pot of Nigeria’s diverse cultures, and a magnet of diverse peoples and nations (FCDA, 1979). This sense of aspiration emerged from the urban problems experienced in Lagos, and also acted as a pilot for the policies and strategic guidelines for the urban development of the new capital city. Lagos was the former capital of Nigeria but was relocated to Abuja due to rapid rise in rent, over population, location of Lagos close to the sea side which was prone to attacks, overcrowding, rapid slum growth, health hazards, small land mass and saturated development down south.

The vision towards the creation of Abuja in the mid-1970s focused on the attainment of a city that would be developed based on a more-people centred urban planning and developmental policies. The city was envisioned to provide a sense of place for every Nigerian, irrespective of their tribe and status in the society. Thereby creating a city with emphasis on integrating and serving the people as a symbol of unity and greatness. With focus on sustainable urban development as its watch word (Jibril, 2006). The current outcome of the city is a combination of various challenges which includes high crime level, unemployment, health issues, poverty, overstretched public facilities/infrastructures, high population density and poor planning policies. Therefore rather than solving a problem by moving the capital the present state of the capital has not tackled the pressing challenges in which urban areas face within the country. The remaining sections of this paper would look at the definition of Urbanisation from a global perspective, urbanisation and urban growth, challenges/consequences of urbanisation, urbanisation in Nigeria’s and its challenges and lastly recommendation/conclusion.

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