Eleh advocates regeneration as solutions to urban decay

The president of the Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Emeka Eleh, has advocated continuous regeneration of urban cities on a platform of sound and professional urban planning as a solution to the challenges of urban decay.

Eleh spoke in a paper he presented to the global body of real estate practitioners titled ‘Urban Regeneration and Real Estate Economic Benefits’ at the 64th Congress of the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) which held in Taipei, Taiwan.

He submitted that urban regeneration takes place when the physical, social and economic characteristics of a dilapidated, run-down and impoverished urban settlement or inner city neighbourhood is being rebuilt through extensive redevelopment works as part of a strategic approach to improve or reinvigorate the neighbourhood.

The NIESV President told his international audience which included over 30 members from Nigeria that urban regeneration becomes necessary when a neighbourhood has faced an elongated economic problem such as de-industrialization, underinvestment, structural or cyclical employment issues, demographic changes, massive and uncoordinated rural urban drift and physical changes arising from decaying infrastructure and services.

He further posited that “an ideal regeneration principle should link the physical transformation of the built environment with the social and economic transformation of the residents”, noting that there are three broad categories of reasons for urban regeneration to include people, business and skill.