Sociocultural Constraints on Urban Renewal Policies in Emerging Nations: The Ibadan Case

Abstract

There is nothing novel about the assertion that large-scale housing deficiencies and poor social and residential environments (in short, slums) characterize most urban centers in the emerging nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Many documents, both empirical and intuitive, substantiate these phenomena. Moreover, it is widely recognized, at least in theory, that there are major sociocultural differences, economic disparities, and technological gaps between the emerging nations and the highly industrialized countries, and among the emerging nations themselves. Yet very rarely do housing and town planning - especially the Westerners operating as experts in, or as consultants to, the emerging nations - take into consideration such sociocultural, economic, political and geotechnical differences when framing housing and urban renewal policies for the cities of the emerging nations.