I get asked regularly – usually as a last question during a panel discussion – to describe a future Lagos. Though I have been asked this many times, I never really know what to say. As a bustling ‘megacity’ with a population of 21 million people and counting, it is hard to know what Lagos’s future holds. There are many different imaginaries of that future alive today.

Lagos’s Multiple Futures

There is, first, the imaginary of Lagos as a protopian city. Introduced by Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine, the concept of protopia was proposed as a way to go beyond the impracticable and totalizing nature of the dystopias and utopias through which the future is most often thought. Protopian futures are ones in which the future is imagined as slightly better than the present, with improvements occurring incrementally. In protopias, both advancements and challenges coexist; some things work well, while others do not. All rigid notions of good or bad futures raise the question: good or bad according to whom? (Kelly, 2019)

US-based illustrator Lekan Jeyifo and designer Wale Oyejide, for instance, have depicted the future of Lagos as protopian. In their renderings of Lagos in 2081, flying vehicles, high-rise buildings, and drones dot the city, and are grafted onto typical present-day traffic-filled streets, overhead electricity cables, and bustling markets. Similarly, a recent animated science fiction miniseries produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Iwájú, celebrated Lagos’s established vibrancy and rich culture, combining it with new advanced technologies such as android street cleaners. In the series, technology has an esteemed place, but does not take away or resolve the issues of greed, chaos, and inequality that riddle the city; these are actual realities we grapple with today that are seen as extending – in evolving forms – into the future. Both the renderings by Jeyifo and Oyejide and the animation series suggest a variety of co-existing positive and negative possibilities for future Lagos.

A protopian future stands in contrast with the more dystopian visions of the United Nations and other international development organizations. These often project a grim picture in which Lagos will have a population of over 40 million by 2050 (World Bank Group, 2023), whose needs will be nearly impossible to meet. Their outlook has activated a sense of panic and created an urgency around finding solutions to ensure that the future isn't dire.

Protopia also contrasts with the more techno-utopian visions forwarded by local policy and decision-makers, which are consequential to how the future is being written on the ground. These visions emphasize economic growth; big infrastructure projects like rail, air, and power stations; and tabula-rasa style free trade zones and island developments. They epitomize a market-led, neoliberal, capitalist approach to development and future-making, which imposes a particular top-down vision of progress that sidelines local communities and their knowledge and needs as Dele Adeyemo demonstrates in his work.

The Limitations of Techno-Utopias: Eko Atlantic City and Other Eco-Smart Developments

Eko Atlantic City is one such island development. As an eco-smart city developed on the premise of ecological flourishing and technological efficiency, and built on land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, the project has been proclaimed as a solution to housing shortages in Lagos. Despite its promotion in this way, Eko Atlantic City, like similar developments such as Orange Island and Alaro City, does not prioritize providing affordable housing but instead offers services for the affluent. Moreover, if the hope was for a trickle-down housing effect to happen, this has not been actualized either. The current housing provision in Lagos is abysmal, where over 70 percent of the population lives in informal settlements (Amnesty International, 2020). Equity and inclusivity are overlooked within such models of development, leaving pressing issues of poverty and displacement largely untouched. Built through private-public partnerships, these flagship developments often belie stated city planning goals.

The idea of a technologically advanced and enclaved utopian city isn't unique to Lagos of course. Abu Dhabi has Yas Island, South Korea has Songdo, and the Maldives has Hulhumale. Michaela Büsse’s work speaks to another example, Forest City in Malaysia. These greenfield mixed-use ‘cities within a city' promise world-class amenities, a luxury living experience, fast internet, and 24/7 power. Both Eko Atlantic and Forest City have similar backstories and possibly similar trajectories. They were both built to provide housing to what was in fact a unique set of people and were ambitiously proclaimed as a model for future urban environments. However, due to funding and other structural issues, both projects were rescaled and became a far cry from their stated intentions. Nonetheless, both have had significant effects on the social, environmental, and economic systems they are a part of.

In the case of Eko Atlantic City, the construction process destroyed a major public space. A vibrant beach that was once a place for families, friends, and individuals to enjoy as one of the few free outdoor spaces in Lagos has become off-limits and enclosed in a gated community for the elite. Livelihoods and homes were displaced when informal coastal settlements were cleared to make way for the project, and sand filling has led to erosion and the flooding of communities further along the coast. In addition to these tangible impacts, intangible elements are also being wiped out, including the histories and cultures that once characterized the places being remade.

Despite the lofty aims of the few that projects like Eko Atlantic City represent and the top-down planning they entail, these spaces continue to develop in unexpected ways. Until recently, I would have described Eko Atlantic as a derelict desert hanging off the coast of Lagos, but there are new natural habitats (grassland and aquatic ecosystems) that are developing here, which we should explore. Eko Atlantic’s realities resonate with what Büsse depicts of Forest City, where impromptu social gatherings and wild plants emerge in the city’s neglected spaces. Eko Atlantic has also become a venue for concerts and events that people have access to even if for a limited time. Like other master-planned cities, which tend to be sited at the edge of the established urban environment, Eko Atlantic is not part of the city, but the city enters into it occasionally and gradually. Over time, social, cultural and environmental elements from Lagos for Eko Atlantic City and Malaysia for Forest City begin to appear and take up space.

Experiments with Protopian Planning: The Lagos Urban Development Initiative

The urban dynamics in eco-smart cities demonstrate the importance of the ‘here and now' aspect in shaping the city’s future. The ‘here and now’ is central to my thinking about what the future of Lagos could look like and to the work I have been doing around this at the Lagos Urban Development Initiative (LUDI).[1] At LUDI, we take an inclusive, feminist approach to urban development, prioritizing hyper-local projects over large-scale capital-intensive initiatives; these projects are designed to be scalable but to still speak to on-the-ground needs and state government policy. Understanding and navigating what can work at a local level, whether it be in agriculture, energy, or public space design, can encourage local ownership over projects and, therefore, promote sustainability. But designing projects in ways that are scalable and translatable to policy is also critical in ensuring minimal push back from the political elite.

One example of such a project by LUDI is the Owornshoki Allotment Garden project. Oworonshoki is a Lagoon-front, low-income community. The initial aim of the project was to reduce crime rates. Crime is rampant along the edges of the community, where gangs can easily slip away, and it is here that the allotment garden was developed. As a busy and functional public space, the garden has supported the reduction in gang-related crime. Since its implementation, it has also been able to touch on other cross-cutting issues such as food security, education, and the need for recreational space. This is only one of LUDI’s projects that reckon with how to make unused space speak to the needs of a community. We have developed a system of implementation that we have applied to other underutilized spaces so as to render them economically beneficial to different stakeholders as well as to the local community.

Another LUDI project that amplifies this multi-scalar, multi-actor approach was a research initiative we undertook, which was aimed at increasing the implementation of solar solutions among residents and micro, small, and medium enterprises. The project was done in conjunction with the Lagos State Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and C40 Cities. Its findings highlighted the importance of data-led planning and revealed the wide gaps in information in existing business models on the most energy-deprived groups in Lagos; the availability of such information is critical to ensuring solar energy becomes affordable and more widely applied. The project’s outcomes have supported policy development and informed the path of solar business in Lagos.

Working across layers of governance — from informal community leadership to the more formal Lagos State Government — and ensuring that marginalized people, including underrepresented age groups, are involved in design and research, has been paving the way for more equitable, though some might argue slower, development. In LUDI's Greening Lagos Project, for instance, we brought young people together (as the future generation) and supported them in redesigning public spaces with a focus on place-making and small-scale interventions. Through initiatives like this, we have been engaging young people, women groups, and the informal sector with architects and designers to develop best management practices for participatory, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable urban design. We believe it is necessary for the population (including young people) to understand that they can be part of the public space design process — from planning to feedback and evaluation — as the users of this space. We are therefore actively working with diverse communities to develop their skills so that they feel more comfortable being part of decision-making processes.

My involvement with LUDI and the trajectory of its projects have led me to see Lagos’ future increasingly as protopian. In this future Lagos, improvements, which are made continuously, speak to present conditions and needs, celebrate our culture, and build on what already exists, while taking advantage of local and global technological advances.