Need for physical environment control enforcement to create liveable cities

Cities are not happenstance but evolutionary trends driven by population and urbanisation. Over the years, world population has increased progressively to over 6 billion, up from just 1 billion in 1850.

The growth rate of urbanisation is such that the population of city dwellers, as at 2000, has risen by 50 percent from what it was in 1850 with a projection that, due to economic, social and political reasons, over 60 percent of the world population will live in cities by 2050.

In Africa, cities are really evolving, but not without challenges that make them unliveable, unlike other parts of the world where growth of cities and rising urbanisation are assets that add value, create jobs, generate wealth, and generally make for good living.

At a breakfast session hosted by Propertygate Development and Investment plc in Lagos recently, experts highlighted the need to create liveable cities, blaming the present sorry situation in Nigerian cities on lack of enforcement of physical environment control.

In his presentation at the session with the theme ‘Creating Liveable Cities: A Call for Physical Environment Control Enforcement’, Adetokunbo Ajayi, Propertygate’s MD/CEO, noted that the chaos on Nigerian roads, indiscriminate construction activities that have created more urban slums than cities, among others, are direct consequences of failure to enforce existing regulations and laws.

Muyiwa Adelu, a town planner and managing partner, Citymatters International, who also made a presentation at the session, agreed, pointing out that Lagos is the worst hit of all the cities in Nigeria.

“The situation is more pronounced by poor implementation of existing laws. Since the creation of Lagos State, there have been various urban and regional planning laws and now environmental laws. The current Urban and Regional Planning law of 2010 is aimed to change haphazard development in the state,” he said.

Defining a liveable city as one that is suitable for living, fit for human habitation, comfortable, satisfactory, and worth living in, Ajayi pointed out that “the way we shape our cities profoundly affects our quality of life – physical and mental health, our opportunities for having friends and neighbours, and how we find jobs and hold them”.

According to him, liveable cities attract investment, stimulate local economy, boost real estate value and markets, tourism, make residents feel good, instils culture of civility and decency as against recklessness and indifference, and fosters atmosphere for real and progressive advancement as could be seen in Festac and Satellite Towns, Lekki-Epe Expressway, etc.

He said that lack of physical and environmental regulations and controls enforcement has far-reaching implications for real estate, including uncertainty and high risk for real estate development and investment, and destruction of real estate value.

Other implications include distortion of real estate value, prohibitive pricing for developable land, diminishing available quality locations for real estate development and investment, curtailing real estate development and investment activities, weakening economic progress, and detracting from quality built environment.

By: Chuka Uroko