Bursting at the Seams: Lagos
Pitch black pollution engulfs small homes in close proximity to one another. A child steps out of her house, looks up and takes a deep breath of air. She begins to cough uncontrollably, little spurts of blood filling her mouth as she falls to the ground dead. During the Industrial Revolution of Great Britain, the island nation experienced a large growth in its population. This was due to the multiple advancements in technology and the large influx of workers seeking employment in the numerous factories that had been established. These factory workers lived under terrible living conditions. Similarly, the port city of Lagos, Nigeria annually welcomes 270,000 people, resulting in extreme overpopulation. Megacities such as Lagos are epicenters of commerce but also have high populations which leads to overcrowding. Little has been done by the government to control the inundation of people into the city, thus causing the development of slums, breeding grounds for contagion and crime. …show more content…
The port city has a history of being the center of commerce, since the early slave trade during the 1800s and recently as location of the headquarters of the major banks in Nigeria. “Evidence of vast amounts of money floating around the “islands” — two small pieces of land poking into the Atlantic that anchor the city’s economic activity and are home to banks, consulates and oil and telecommunications companies — is everywhere.”(Connors) The city was originally built to support a population 100,000 people, but now houses nearly 17 million. The overpopulation of this port city is a serious problem for the citizens. The intake of these eager workers expecting better lives in a megacity is the reason why there are extreme repercussions in the overall well being of the