British Colonial Land Use Policies and Housing Development in Lagos

Abstract

This paper highlights the changing pattern of town planning and housing development in Lagos between 1900 and 1960, a period that witnessed the implementation of several colonial housing policies. Existing scholarship has overlooked the role that colonial land use policies played in the uneven town planning and housing development in Lagos. Drawing on a large body of colonial records and secondary sources, this paper analyses the impact of the British colonial government policies on housing development in colonial Lagos. Archival sources collected from the National Archive of Nigeria, Ibadan, and The National Archive (TNA), Kew, and secondary sources were critically engaged through a qualitative historical method. The uneven and combined development concept is deployed in depicting the biased housing development policies of the British government in Lagos. The British colonial land use policies impacted negatively on physical planning and housing development in Lagos. Colonial town planning schemes, sanitation regulations, and building laws precipitated the contemporary problem of uneven development that has impeded inclusive development in Lagos.