Africa's Planned Cities Need Unplanning

NIGERIA'S SLUMS AND STARTUP CITIES CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

- SCOTT BEYER

VICTORIA ISLAND, NIGERIA—“Sorry, you can’t enter. Next time, call our sales office in advance.”

That was the greeting my three-man detail and I got after enduring the multihour traffic slog from mainland Lagos to Eko Atlantic. I had never considered that such a high-profile real estate project, launched in 2009, would still be gated to visitors. And when we peered past the guard, it did not seem like much was happening inside. Eko was a smattering of stand-alone high-rises popping up from a barren landscape.

“You’ll have to return tomorrow,” the guard said.

So we decided that day, and much of the rest of my two weeks in Lagos, to visit the city’s many illegal shantytowns instead.

They had a different setup: Anyone can enter, and people were particularly welcoming of me, a rare white visitor. The areas are full of commerce, like linear Walmarts, with anything for sale on a given block. They don’t have Eko’s media buzz—some even carry stigmas— but they’re more functional.

This comparison speaks to a paradox I’ve found with African real estate. The more “formal” a project is—with master plans, institutional investors, and government involvement—the more slowly it materializes. The more “informal” it is, with minimal rules other than how locals self-govern, the more quickly it becomes a real city.