Lagos Africa’s biggest city

Local News
NIGERIA’S city of Lagos is to overtake the Egyptian capital Cairo as Africa’s biggest city, a UN report says.

NIGERIA’S city of Lagos is to overtake the Egyptian capital Cairo as Africa’s biggest city, a UN report says.

In 2015 it is estimated Lagos will have 12,4 million inhabitants.The economy of Lagos state is thought to be worth around US $33 billion, despite the chronic overcrowding, crumbling infrastructure and hellish traffic.Expansion continues at a breakneck speed and part of the expansion plans for Lagos include an ambitious new city within a city.The Eko Atlantic project promises to turn Lagos into a hugely important financial powerhouse. UN-Habitat’s Joan Clos told said that Africa needed to invest urgently in housing as city populations would more than triple in the next 40 years.He said sub-Saharan Africa could learn from North Africa as Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia had almost halved slum areas in the past 20 years.According to UN-Habitat’s State of African Cities 2010 report, Africa is the continent most rapidly becoming urbanised and in 2030 will no longer be predominately rural. Clos, UN-Habitat’s executive director, said that cities were attractive places. “People are looking for a better future and they think the city can offer that,” he said.Agricultural reform and poverty in rural areas were another reason for the trend, he said. The UN also forecasts that the population of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will increase by 46% over the next 10 years to become the fast-growing city.The report warns that climate change is causing another serious problem –– coastal flooding. With many of Africa’s cities built by the sea, millions of people risk losing their homes in the coming decades.It says the West African coastline is retreating by between 20 metres and 30 metres every year. –– BBC.