December 11, 2007

Lagos: The City of Tomorrow, Today

Current offers a healthy dose of reality with this feature on Lagos, Nigeria, the world’s fastest growing megacity, according to the U.N. (a “megacity” is defined as an urban area with a population of 10 million people or more). The city, which claimed less than 300,000 residents in 1950, now has somewhere between 12 million and 20 million inhabitants, the large number of floating and immigrating residents making it difficult to determine exactly how large the city has become. Learning about Lagos - its dominating informal economy, nearly non-existent infrastructure, rampant corruption, and unsafe health conditions - forces anyone with the conception of the “City of Tomorrow” as being a futuristic, well-oiled, Tomorrowland to seriously reconsider.

[via AfricaUnchained]

Article categories: Global Community, Trends In Africa