Planning Challenges of Space Conciliation for Urban Planners: The Example of the Urban Node of Yaba, Lagos Metropolis

Abstract

Environment can be defined as the sum total of the conditions within which organisms lives; it is the result of interaction between non-living (abiotic) physical and chemical and also present living (biotic) parameter (Barrow, 1995). Many of the urban environmental problems lie unsound concepts of develpoment and modernization”Park (1980). Like most of the urban centres of the developing countries, Lagos Metropolitan Area (LAMA) is characterized by rising population, unemployment, shortage of housing and infrastructural facilities. The nodal points of this urban centre which are usually areas of conflict of socio-economic activities include Oshodi, Mile 2”, Oyingbo, and Yaba (Fig. 1). The planlessness and blight that such areas exhibit have thus become a challenge to planners, who face the issue of reconciling the competing factors.

Unfortunately, not mush has been done to study the characteristics of these urban nodes. Yet, the knowledge of these characteristics is significant for understanding the nodes for effective planning the areas. The present study therefore examines the characteristics of one of the nodal points, namely, Yaba bus stop. The paper also examined the planning challenges of space reconciliation for urban planners using the nodal point as a case example.