Densification is not the enemy, but unplanned infrastructure, blind densification is.
I HAVE my business outfit in what was once a quiet residential neighbourhood in Ikeja.
It is a crescent, originally designed with dual access; a subtle but important planning feature that provided flexibility, safety, and permeability.
One day, however, the Resident’s Association decided to permanently block one of the access points, turning the street into a close.
The justification was about security… reducing the number of access points to be manned, without any consideration for the wider security, safety, circulation, or emergency implications.
That single act captures the larger story of uncoordinated densification.
When the estate was conceived, it contained about 40 buildings, at least about two fifths of them, bungalows. There was a primary school whose open grounds doubled as a communal space, where children played, neighbours gathered, and social bonds formed naturally.
Then densification crept in.
Of the roughly 16 bungalows that once housed about 16 families, six were sold and redeveloped, each replaced with multiple dwelling units averaging three families per plot. In one sweep, 12 additional families were introduced—without any corresponding upgrade to infrastructure.
If this trajectory continues, by 2030, the original 40 families in the neighbourhood would have ballooned to 120 families.
And here lies the real problem.
Infrastructure Does Not Multiply by Assumption.
Densification presupposes an improvement in infrastructure.
In reality, in Lagos, development usually arrives before infrastructure—leaving the environment worse off than it was designed to be.
Consider the consequences already visible:
▪︎Road reservation remains fixed. It is in poor condition serving 40 families; one can only imagine its state with 120.
▪︎Drainage is shallow, open, and inadequate. Flooding is inevitable as population pressure increases.
▪︎On-street parking has become the norm, as internal compound parking is insufficient.
▪︎Power supply, though classified as Band A, is unreliable and has not been upgraded to reflect increased demand.
▪︎Internet connectivity remains primitive, unable to support modern work-from-home or digital economies.
▪︎ Trees have been felled indiscriminately, as new developments build from fence to fence, ignoring prescribed setbacks.
▪︎The neighbourhood now feels impersonal, congested, and harsh, stripped of its original human scale.
▪︎Long-standing residents, many retirees—have been forced to sell or live in quiet misery, losing privacy, sunlight, and the comfort of familiar social networks.
▪︎A hotel with 4 suspended floors, entirely incongruent with the residential character of the area, introduces a clientele and activity profile unsuitable for a family neighbourhood.
▪︎Children can no longer ride bicycles or play outdoors.
▪︎The fruit trees they once gathered under are gone.
▪︎Groundwater is increasingly polluted, as every household relies on cesspools in the absence of a central sewer system.
▪︎Potable water is non-existent, with each household sinking its own borehole—an unsustainable race to the bottom.
The Unspoken Truth
Every household under unmanaged densification suffers a lower quality of life.
This neighbourhood is not unique. It is a microcosm of Lagos… playing out across Ikeja, Surulere, Yaba, Ikoyi, and beyond, in varying intensities and forms.
Densification is not the enemy, but unplanned infrastructure, blind densification is.
A Question Lagos Must Answer
If development continues to outpace infrastructure:
If planning regulations remain negotiable:
If setbacks, green spaces, sunlight, and drainage are treated as expendable:,
Then we must ask ourselves, honestly and urgently:
Shouldn’t this be addressed now, before Lagos becomes the most expensive unliveable slum in the world?
Densification is not a right. It is a privilege earned through infrastructure readiness.