Abstract
Understanding the term urban sustainability continues to dominate discourse in the built environment as societies explore how cities can be considered sustainable. Due to the increasing rate of urbanization, scholars argue that the battle for sustainability will be won or lost in cities; recognizing the crucial role that neighbourhoods can play as building blocks of urban areas. However, while the context-specificity of the several approaches to sustainability at the neighbourhood level has been recognised, no single accepted understanding of a sustainable neighbourhood has emerged. This paper explores institutional stakeholders’ understanding of a sustainable neighbourhood using questionnaire data from metropolitan Lagos. This aligns with the critical realism philosophical stance which believes that knowledge can be sourced through the perception of people with respect to an underlying structure based on their reality. The findings show variations in the perceptions with institutions having similar responsibilities differing in their understanding of the concept. It was unclear why a single common understanding was missing and why certain elements were more emphasised than others even in institutions having similar roles. Further research should explore the mechanisms at play in influencing these understandings and how they may differ in various urban contexts in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Highlights
With sustainability as a recurring theme in the built environment discourse (AUC 2014; UNDESA 2016; UNHABITAT 2016), recent focus has been on cities, which accounts for about 55% of the global population (UNDESA 2018) and soon to be 70%
Epistemologically, critical realism will allow the context in metropolitan Lagos to be accounted for in understanding the perceptions indicated by the stakeholders
Out of the 10 themes that emerged from the literature five were captured by the regulators’ understanding of the concept of a sustainable neighbourhood
Summary
With sustainability as a recurring theme in the built environment discourse (AUC 2014; UNDESA 2016; UNHABITAT 2016), recent focus has been on cities, which accounts for about 55% of the global population (UNDESA 2018) and soon to be 70%. Developed by Ebenezer Howard, a British urban planner in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, it envisioned a mix of the best of the city and the countryside. It attempted to establish connections between the dwelling unit, the neighbourhood, the ward, and the town in relation with other places (Farr 2008). Developed by the American Clarence Perry, it served as a framework for urban planners attempting to design functional, self-contained, and desirable neighbourhoods in the early twentieth century in industrialising cities (Choguill 2008; Perry 1929). The Radburn concept was another notable turn to planning at the neighbourhood level, developed in 1929 by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. Characterised by a superblock and a cul-de-sac, it promoted neighbourhoods with pedestrian paths that do not cross any major roads to encourage interaction among residents
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