{"id":5640,"date":"2019-09-30T10:33:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T07:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5640"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","slug":"nigerias-akure-is-a-good-example-of-how-not-to-build-a-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/30\/nigerias-akure-is-a-good-example-of-how-not-to-build-a-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria\u2019s Akure Is A Good Example Of How Not To Build A City"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>By Michael O Alabi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Akure is one of Nigeria\u2019s emerging cities. Located within\nOndo State in the country\u2019s south west, it\u2019s a settlement about 350kms from\nLagos where roads meet from major towns such as Ilesa, Ondo, Owo and Ado-Ekiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its population is climbing fast. In 2006 it was home to\nabout 484,798 people. Today the population is&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.citypopulation.de\/php\/nigeria-admin.php?adm1id=NGA029\">estimated\nto be about 637,458<\/a>&nbsp;and growing as people move to it from rural areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the way in which local authorities are going about\nbuilding the city is deeply flawed. It also doesn\u2019t to take into account\nlessons learnt from elsewhere in the world about how best to build healthy\ncities. For example, one of the main health risks for city dwellers is a lack\nof access to green spaces. Another is the fact that people are often forced to\ntravel vast distances to get to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a recent research paper, I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/23748834.2019.1639421\">explored<\/a>\u00a0the way Akure is being developed. There are two major problems with the approach the city is taking. The first is that green spaces are being lost because city officials have cleared green open spaces and farmlands on the edges of Akure to make room for buildings. Satellite images that I examined showed that where thick vegetation and farmlands accounted for about 51.5% of land cover in 1986, that stood at just 38.8% in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second problem that people are being moved to formerly\ngreen spaces at the very edge of the city and this is taking a big toll on them\nfinancially and from a health perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I found that city officials have not considered how\napproaches like mixed-use developments closer to the city centre might\nalleviate the housing shortage as well as protect Akure\u2019s green spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A balance must be struck between accommodating the town\u2019s\ngrowing population and making sure that urbanisation doesn\u2019t entirely wipe out\ngreen spaces and farm land. This is possible, as is clear from initiatives\nin&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full\/10.1177\/0042098018822965\">China<\/a>,\nThailand,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usp.br\/internationaloffice\/wc2\/media\/presentations\/WC2_USP_Secretary_Bucalem.pdf\">Brazil<\/a>&nbsp;and\nAustralia. <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/nigerias-akure-is-a-good-example-of-how-not-to-build-a-city-124198\">Read\nmore&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael O Alabi Akure is one of Nigeria\u2019s emerging cities. Located within Ondo State in the country\u2019s south west, it\u2019s a settlement about 350kms from Lagos where roads meet&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}