Residents’ satisfaction with urban renewal projects in south-western Nigeria

Abstract

The study described in this paper examined residents’ satisfaction with urban renewal projects in south-western Nigeria. The aim was to provide guidelines that could enhance sustainable urban renewal projects in the study area. Primary data was collected from residents in selected cities in states in south-western Nigeria. The states were categorised into three homogeneous groups: Lagos/Ogun, Oyo/Osun and Ondo/Ekiti. One state was randomly selected from each group, namely Ogun, Osun and Ondo. Thus, the following capital cities where urban renewal projects were concentrated in these states were selected: Abeokuta, Osogbo and Akure. A set of questionnaires targeted at residents was administered to household heads living in one of every 20 houses in the 31 political wards. A total of 1,671 questionnaires were administered, of which 1,555 copies were retrieved for the study. Data collected was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Secondary data included maps of political wards from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), maps from ministries of their respective states, number of residential buildings from National Population Commission (NPC), among others. On average, the condition of renewal projects provided by the governments in the study area is moderately satisfactory. Construction and rehabilitation of roads was adjudged the best (3.9 out of 5). Further, a mean score of 2.8 was obtained for all the projects taken together. This shows that the respondents were fairly satisfied with the urban projects implemented in the study area. The study concluded that low level of involvement of members of the public in the planning and implementation of urban renewal in the study area did not negatively influence their acceptability of the projects executed.