PROPERTY ARTICLES

Urban planner and erstwhile secretary of the National Housing Policy Council in Abuja, Mr. Yacoob Abiodun, has said that contrary to what is obtainable in Nigeria, the town planning profession is alive and thriving in the United States of America (USA).

Abiodun, now retired and based in Lagos, is currently visiting Planning Departments the cities of Chicago, Baltimore and New York and appears impressed by what he has so far seen. A week ago, he was a guest at the offices of the American Planning Association (APA) in Chicago, apparently to rub minds with professional colleagues there and update his knowledge on contemporary planning best practices.

He added in a recent correspondent to Daily Independent that his visit was also aimed at understudying the APA’s role as a professional body in America.

"I am deluged with a plethora of information beyond my imagination," he confessed, pointing out that the APA " considered an equivalent of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP) " was a "resource house of planning books used in majority of planning schools across America."

He added, "It has a publishing outfit for that purpose. Whither NITP? Zoning is religiously adhered to in all human settlement hierarchies in America from villages, towns, cities to metropolises. Why are we different? The Lagos scenario concerning the relevance of zoning in planning is an affront to our profession. Anything goes, and that is why the Lagos skyscape is nebulous!"

Abiodun went further, "Other components of planning (urban design, renewal, revitalisation, heritage/preservation, housing, sustainability and research) are in the front burner in planning across cities in USA and have kept their planners busy and thinking.

"Approval of building plans (with due respect) which is the preoccupation of planners in Alausa is an infinitesimal job that planners do in their daily official duties here. What they engage in is hard core/brain-tasking planning aimed at improving their cities in terms of livability, economic potential, employment, aesthetics, stress-free traffic and tourism. We are a far cry from these lofty goals the way we practise our own planning. We need a change."

He called on colleagues at home to urgently turn things around. "I crave your indulgence to enlist you as one of the crusaders to jump-start the change process, using the NITP as the arrowhead and megaphone. We need to brainstorm on it," he said.