Lagos

city · earth

Nigeria's largest city, on and around a lagoon system on the Bight of Benin, and the case that most sharply separates where urban growth is happening from where urban attention goes. Its population is genuinely unknown: Nigeria has not held a census since 2006, that count returned about 9 million for Lagos State and was publicly disputed by the state government, and current estimates for the urban agglomeration run from roughly 16 to over 20 million depending on boundary and source. The constraints on daily life are not architectural. Peer-reviewed work on Lagos groundwater puts the share of households with a piped connection into the dwelling in the low single digits, with most supply coming from private boreholes, vendors and standpipes; the state water utility's production capacity is generally described as meeting well under half of demand. Formal mass transit arrived only recently, with the Blue Line's first phase in 2023. Meanwhile the coastline is being remade at both ends of the income distribution at once — reclaimed luxury land at Eko Atlantic, demolition at Makoko.