Management of Sustainable Cities in Nigeria: The Imperative of Urban Governance
The 21st century is a century of cit ies. Over half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and by 2050 this figure may rise to 70 percent globally (UN-HABITAT, 2010). The unprecedented pace of urbanization has had a profound impact on the number and size of cities and has created a phenomenon called “megacities”: (UN-HABITAT, 2007). This ongoing transformation to a global urban society offers an unprecedented opportunity to use the urbanization process as a catalyst for sustainable economic and social development since urbanization is a precondition for social and economic development (SDSN, 2013). State of World Population (2009) shows that the more developed countries are all highly urbanized; the least developed countries are all low on urbanization. However, the urbanization process in most cities of less developed countries heightens such conditions as lack of resources, poverty, inequality, the pervasiveness of slums and insanitation, overcrowding, housing congestion, crime and violence, and several other demeaning situations (Omisore et al., 2003; Ogunleye, 2005; UNEP, 2012, Adeboyejo, 2013; Ogunkan and Adeboyejo, 2015). This is particularly true of Nigerian cities which today are one of, if not, the greatest contributors to the urbanization profile of Africa (Adeboyejo 2013).
