"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
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Urban Resilience or just existence?
So we're talking about a city where it is estimated the could potential exceed 20 million by 2020.
The problem is, there is no strategy or plan, inasmuch as the current state governor, Babatunde Fashola, has been doing since his tenure started in 2007. In fact, it would be safe to say that he has done more for the city than previous governors barring Jakande in the 80s.
The city, in short, is overcrowded. It is not unreasonable to expect to be stuck in a traffic jam on the wrong side of 8am or 4pm for hours on end, especially if you're crossing the city. I have been stuck in traffic and arrived home just after 11pm having started out from Victoria Island at 3pm. Yet people have to make this commute to work every day. The city's infrastructure outside of the "posh" areas is a sight to behold, yet this is what the majority of Lagosians have come to expect. The problem is that I've been involved in housing for too many years, and each year, during the rainy season, buildings collapse. I've since learned that brick makers put more sand than cement in their bricks, in fact I'm aware of an incident where a purchaser complained to a brick maker that 40 bricks fell apart when they were being removed from the vehicle. The laws have now changed to state that a percentage of gravel be put into all bricks, but there is no way of reinforcing this or any other law.
And therein lies one of the bigger problems; law and order. Anyone can pretty much set themselves up in any business without recourse to government. I'm convinced that the Nigerian economy is driven by the unrecognised, unaccounted for petty traders that exist in every neighbourhood: the shopkeeper, the vulcaniser, the butcher, the electrician, the shoemaker...the list is endless. Though the initiative is to be admired, it also has its downside. Forget health and safety, forget child protection, forget social responsibility (e.g. disposal of rubbish); people do what they need to survive. Not everyone has the luxury of an office job or a reliable income.
So I laugh when advertisements talk about "pay your tax", yet outside of my front door I can't see one single difference this tax has made. The roads are bad and are only leveled by contributions from the local community or, if you're lucky, a competent local government. Ours is a joke; the main road was supposedly leveled but the drainage wasn't sorted. The result is roads that were equally as bad than before the work was. Apparently the old men of the neighbourhood, who knew nothing about road construction, were instrumental in this fiasco. So much for "local knowledge".
Urban resilience, by all means, is simply about surviving from day-to-day.
The problem is, there is no strategy or plan, inasmuch as the current state governor, Babatunde Fashola, has been doing since his tenure started in 2007. In fact, it would be safe to say that he has done more for the city than previous governors barring Jakande in the 80s.
The city, in short, is overcrowded. It is not unreasonable to expect to be stuck in a traffic jam on the wrong side of 8am or 4pm for hours on end, especially if you're crossing the city. I have been stuck in traffic and arrived home just after 11pm having started out from Victoria Island at 3pm. Yet people have to make this commute to work every day. The city's infrastructure outside of the "posh" areas is a sight to behold, yet this is what the majority of Lagosians have come to expect. The problem is that I've been involved in housing for too many years, and each year, during the rainy season, buildings collapse. I've since learned that brick makers put more sand than cement in their bricks, in fact I'm aware of an incident where a purchaser complained to a brick maker that 40 bricks fell apart when they were being removed from the vehicle. The laws have now changed to state that a percentage of gravel be put into all bricks, but there is no way of reinforcing this or any other law.
And therein lies one of the bigger problems; law and order. Anyone can pretty much set themselves up in any business without recourse to government. I'm convinced that the Nigerian economy is driven by the unrecognised, unaccounted for petty traders that exist in every neighbourhood: the shopkeeper, the vulcaniser, the butcher, the electrician, the shoemaker...the list is endless. Though the initiative is to be admired, it also has its downside. Forget health and safety, forget child protection, forget social responsibility (e.g. disposal of rubbish); people do what they need to survive. Not everyone has the luxury of an office job or a reliable income.
So I laugh when advertisements talk about "pay your tax", yet outside of my front door I can't see one single difference this tax has made. The roads are bad and are only leveled by contributions from the local community or, if you're lucky, a competent local government. Ours is a joke; the main road was supposedly leveled but the drainage wasn't sorted. The result is roads that were equally as bad than before the work was. Apparently the old men of the neighbourhood, who knew nothing about road construction, were instrumental in this fiasco. So much for "local knowledge".
Urban resilience, by all means, is simply about surviving from day-to-day.
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