radarq.net

Lagos

“Lagos: the first true mega-city in sub-Saharan Africa, home to between 9 million and 17 million people, depending on where you draw the lines and who’s doing the counting. With an estimated 3,000 more people arriving every day, Lagos is one of the fastest growing cities on the planet. Yet it is set on an infrastructure that was meant for a far, far smaller place. As a result, everything here seems supersized. The traffic jams are tighter than anywhere else, the pollution more appalling, the poverty more glaring. The buses have no route signs, the taxis have no meters (you have to negotiate strenuously if you don’t want to be cheated) and, if there’s a tie-up, people might simply pull onto the wrong side of the road—flashing their lights or honking their horns—and blast the wrong way down the highway. At the waterside, crude huts are elevated on sticks above the stagnant brown lagoon and kids frolic in the waste-filled water. On bad days, the countless piles of burning trash and the blasts of engines with no emission controls give Lagos a Victorian pall and it seems impossible—and potentially dangerous—to breathe too deeply.” - Robert Neuwirth, In the markets of the meta city

/via: pdsmith

Source: whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com