Let’s give the city a face
By Mohammed Bello Yunusa Urban sociologists, a group whose preoccupation is to make others understand the composition and working of those concrete jungles called cities, told us that the rural area has a soul and the city has face. I wonder what one can do with a face without a soul. I certainly prefer to […]
By Mohammed Bello Yunusa
Urban sociologists, a group whose preoccupation is to make others understand the composition and working of those concrete jungles called cities, told us that the rural area has a soul and the city has face. I wonder what one can do with a face without a soul. I certainly prefer to have my soul. The social harmony and concord, serenity, fresh air and melodious sounds of birds and animals obtainable in rural areas are replaced by assorted roof and house colours, amazing mass movement of people and vehicles, sounds of machines and equipment and people who hardly have time to say hello to one another in cities.
The sheer mass of people and land of cities make them prone to numerous issues of land, people and environment pollution and cleanliness. In fact, the cities are said to be the sources of major pollutants of air, land and water. The cities are guilty of emitting noxious gases that make global temperature, rainfall and rain distribution to change and behave very badly. This is climate change. Climate change causes fire, flood and too much heat to occur in human settlements including cities.
To minimise these issues, the cities are always and should be much regulated. There are rules on how to build, where to build, park vehicles, what to use the buildings for, where to throw away household or industrial wastes. In some countries, no one just spits on the road. Doing so will require the payment of a quantum of money far more than will buy tissue paper to spit into.
In the cities there are expected attitudes and conducts as there are laws that guide activities and behaviour such that activities that require land need official permission. In Nigeria, for instance, the laws and policies expects that if anyone wants to sell oranges, fry akara or kosai, roast suya, establish factories or build residential homes, permission to use the land and do what is desired on it is required. Otherwise, there is trouble. Regulations are wide and many. As of today, in Lagos state, trust Eko the centre of excellence, if a person does not repaint his or her building after a number of years or cuts a tree in the compound without permission, the person is liable to a fine or appropriate punishment.
In Dubai, people must obtain permission to install satellite TV dishes and it is forbidden to dry clothes on the veranda or balcony. Violation of any of these attracts punishment.
It is these laws and values together with attached rewards and punishment that make cities beautiful, healthy and the people that live in them productive. That is the face of the city. This explains why London, New York, Tokyo, Dubai and others are attractive and Onitsha, Kano, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and many of Nigerian towns and cities are not attractive. Nigerian cities have neither souls and nor faces. People in cities are yet to have city ethics and values.
Where are these ethics and values? In Nigeria, the city can become a dustbin, no, a motor park or denied access ways and drainage system, who cares? Nigerian cities are large seas of poorly disposed polythene bags, groundnut wrappers and food debris. Boutiques are set up in the middle of the road while super markets and bookshops are set up on top of bridges. River courses are blocked to erect buildings. Building blocks, including the face-me-I-face-you civilian barracks are littered with cable TV dishes. Auto repair places, the open grave yard of all modes of vehicles, litter the cities. Vehicles are stopped in the middle of roads and access ways to hold meetings, oblivious of others that are waiting to go. Tiny transport modes have continued to pollute Nigerian cities and maim citizens.
With these, there are no surprises as to why city people are unhealthy, less productive and investments don’t come to the cities. The city people are bugged down by the congestion resulting from lack of planning. It is long overdue to give faces or aesthetics to our cities. It is time for the suya man, the akara woman and auto repair people to move to enclosed shops for the city and human dignity. Access ways, location of places of human activities, drainage system, waste collection, need to be defined and enforced. Indeed, Nigerian cities need planning, re-planning and strict controls to give them faces, even as the souls may be lost.
The people that have the capacity and skills to give faces to our cities are the town planners. The town planners, or physical planners or urban and regional planners are solely responsible for the lay out, control of development and enforcement of urban development codes through
Yunusa is the Executive Director, Socioeconomic and Environment Advocacy Centre, Zaria