Land Pooling and Urban Renewal in Lagos State: a Narrative Inquiry into Isale Gangan Project

The deplorable condition of cities around the world has often necessitated urban renewal, and several of such programmes have been carried out in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos. However, given the intricacies of the process involved and the dynamic nature of the environment, evaluation of these renewal efforts is imperative to provide required insights and guide future endeavours. This is rarely done and usually less documented. Against this backdrop, this paper, using a narrative inquiry of qualitative research approach, evaluates an urban renewal programme in Lagos Island. Findings reveal that the land area for the renewal programme was acquired through land pooling scheme, contrary to the usual individual property acquisition technique, which usually is difficult to administer. Increase in housing stock, among other physical and socioeconomic impacts, was a positive effect of the project, as the government embarked on vertical development against the horizontal development by the individual families. The cost implication of the redevelopment and time factor were some of the issues which could have hindered the success of the programme, were it not for the cooperation of all stakeholders. Finally, while land pooling approach is observed to be a relative success, introduction of some level of rehabilitation is recommended as a way of enhancing the achievement of a renewal program, particularly for cost reduction, rather than total clearance and redevelopment. Also, public participation should be encouraged for effective realisation of residents’ cooperation, as observed in Isale Gangan project.