Infrastructure And The Urban Environment

One of the daunting challenges facing African countries in the wake of unprecedented urbanization during the last few decades is the planning and management of physical infrastructure and the urban environment.

As urbanization gathered pace in most countries in the region, the problem of inadequacy of infrastructure services and deteriorating urban environment became enormous.

The appalling conditions of infrastructure in many cities in Africa with specific reference to Nigeria raises questions concerning the appropriateness of the approaches and strategies for responding to inadequate infrastructure services and a poor urban environment. Faced with dwindling public finance, the inadequacy of the top-down conventional urban planning and development approach became apparent in deteriorating urban fabrics.

Nigeria, like most countries in Africa, is undergoing a period of rapid urbanization.Unlike the European and North American experience, where urbanization was preceded by industrialization and rapid economic development, Nigerian urbanization is taking place against the background of a weak economic base and low rate of industrialization.

The growing urban population is mainly absorbed in the low-paid informal sector, while others are essentially unemployed. Many households living in vast urban areas are living below the poverty line and this trend may continue in the near future.

The size of the urban population, and the almost certain urban expansion in the next few decades, have huge implications for housing, infrastructure, and the urban environment.

The implication of this lack of service, poor and inadequate housing provision, and less than adequate planning strategies, among other things, includes the worsening of urban environment conditions. There is already evidence that several Nigerian cities are showing signs of decay. Apart from poor conditions of urban infrastructure, routine maintenance is virtually non-existent. There is a decline of public expenditure on public services, compounding service provision problems in suburban areas.

The foregoing suggests that in order to prevent the urban environment from cascading further into deterioration, there is a need to step back and query existing infrastructure development strategies. There is also a need to re-examine the linkage between urban planning and infrastructure development in view of the prevailing socio-economic reality and urban development dynamics in the country. In the face of post-independence urban development, which has seen a lot of urban growth and suburbanization, and diminishing economic prospects, the role of planning in the attainment of sustainable urban infrastructure needs to be reconsidered. The conventional wisdom of technocratic urban development processes needs to be questioned.

A critical but often ignored question is how best to achieve an improved urban environment for the low-income majority of urban residents in the country in suburban and inner city areas. Should the country continue with strategies that, despite the rhetoric of equity end up providing conventional services for a few medium and high-income housing estates and government reservations?

On the other hand, do we adopt models that aim to provide at least basic services to deprived areas? These are important issues, certainly in the Nigerian context, and require a fundamental and realistic response, if poor urban environment and infrastructure sustainability are to be adequately addressed.

Read also: Africa Needs $100billion Annually To Close Infrastructure Financing Gap – AfDB President