The UN’s global convention on urbanisation must remember that not all cities are created equal. It is unfair to suggest that Addis Ababa, Nairobi and my city, Lagos, should not develop the way Amsterdam, London and New York once grew
There is a place in Lagos I go to when I need to clear my head. It’s an old jetty in the city’s Ikoyi neighbourhood that sticks out into the still waters of Five Cowrie Creek, which separates Lagos Island from the Lekki Peninsula at its westernmost tip.
At night you can sit and look out at the tall buildings of Victoria Island and the Lagos skyline that, majestic in the dark, belie the fractured sprawl they dominate during the day. Often I lie here with my back on concrete that emanates heat from a day in the sun, staring up at the city lights and dreaming of the paradise that this ever-growing megalopolis will one day become … if only.
Our cities are not the idealised open, accessible and cosmopolitan spaces of our dreams.
We all find ourselves desperately searching for a way to make this complicated city more liveable
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