The nexus of informal trading and the built environment, a case study of Lagos, Nigeria

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Onolaja, OA, 2020. The nexus of informal trading and the built environment, a case study of Lagos, Nigeria. MPhil, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This research aims to comprehend the spatial influences of street trade on the environment, culture, and perception of Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. The study seeks to reveal how these informal commercial activities connect spatially with the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the city, and to use its findings to make recommendations which address the gaps in current public policy for street trading activities in Lagos metropolis.

Ojodu Berger Motor Park, with surrounding portions of the Isheri road axis and the Lagos - Ibadan expressway, on mainland Lagos, is the case study location for the study. Nonparticipant and participant observation, Findings were gathered from a sample of street vendors and other respondents in the case study area through a combination of key informant semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire.

Findings show that the operational and spatial characteristics of these street trading activities connect with, and also reflect the people behaviour in pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the urban public spaces. These dispositions are shaped by movement patterns, lifestyle, and social and economic status, religion, and work routine, visual and verbal expressions, habits, manners and needs, speed, cultural and ethnic background of the people. The rationale behind these dispositions include ease, convenience, cheap cost, nearness, flexibility, variety, openness, socio-cultural appeal, time saved, freedom. At the core of this complexity is time, which represents specific moments of everyday life in a typical day.

However, the resultant overlap of ‘inherent traditional values’ within a ‘modern setting’, inevitably, leads to shaping the social, but contested meaning of the urban public space, into a complex variety of predominantly vernacular based, commercial driven multi-purpose spaces.

Therefore, due to the resultant controversies, regarding ‘rights to the city’, between street traders and policy makers, the study recommends a realistic, “bottom – top” policy framework, which integrates government plans with existing reality of daily life in the city, and thus results into a ‘win-win’ situation for all sides.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Onolaja, O.A.
Contributors:	Name Role NTU ID ORCID Collins, P. Thesis supervisor SUR3COLLIPR UNSPECIFIED
Date:	December 2020
Rights:	This work is the intellectual property of the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	17 Jun 2024 14:02
Last Modified:	08 Jul 2024 15:45
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51575