A city community must be a planned human settlement catering for multifarious activities and providing the facilities to make life interesting. This necessitates that there should be a regional Town Planning Authority Town to undertake the physical planning of the community and to monitor the development and construction of projects and infrastructure. Town planning makes provision for residential area, health centres, administrative area, industrial estate, educational institutions of all levels, neighbourhood areas, transport and communication systems, markets, stadium and recreation centers, place of worship, agricultural land, woods, security, energy, water, etc. The object of the town planning is to create a well-ordered, beautiful and salubrious city.
The streets will be well laid out running parallel to each other and criss-crossing like checkerboard. For security reasons the streets will be made not to run continuously unending but to be in the form of a labyrinth. The streets should be paved or surfaced with side drains. Cutting through the roads after they have been surfaced will be strictly prohibited. Rather, pipes will be drilled through, beneath the roads. As much as possible provisions will be made for all other supply lines as electricity, cables, telephone cables, and gas pipes to pass underground.
Drainage
As said earlier all streets will have side drain to carry the flood to streams or rivers. Where there are no rivers earth dams can be constructed at suitable points to be linked with the drains to discharge their flood. Water is a scarce resource; therefore, the people should be versed in its economy — sourcing and management . In the dams could be treated for potable water, stocked with fish, used for irrigation or for any other purposes.
Sewage Management — Human waste must not be exposed. Every house should have a water system or at least a pit-toilet. There has to be public toilet facilities at easily accessible points and there must be attendants who maintain them throughout the day. In some cases individual septic tanks may be permitted, but in general an effort should be made for a central sewage system within a given district, if the whole city is not readily feasible. Pet keepers should not litter the streets with the droppings of their pets.
Civil Works And Buildings
Great emphasis should be paid to civil works and construction. In typical residential areas, all buildings will have to follow a pattern given by the Town Planing Authority. Wealth should be displayed through huge and elegant buildings and magnificent palaces. They should be the works of professionals — architects, builders, engineers, artists etc. They have to use appealing colours. From time to time the owners will need to apply a new coating of paint on the buildings — walls and roofs.
Every housing unit should have lawns and gardens. Every part of the plot should either be surfaced or grassed. The streets should also be planted with ornamental plants. All open spaces must be paved or planted with lawns, trees and shrubs. This is to check denudation of the soil, washed off soil can block drains. As a matter of rule there should be a greenbelt in every section of the community. Other beautification structures and monuments need to be constructed at strategic points. Streetlights should be provided to light up the nights. The TPA must have a unit of Parks and Gardens to be in charge of horticulture and landscaping development.
Land Use — The land is a natural resource; however it is limited; therefore, the use must be well planned out and judiciously applied. Land is a veritable source of the local economy. It creates jobs for the rural people or put in other words the people make a living out of the land. The use of the land can become harmful if it is indiscriminate or is injudicious. There should, therefore, be an all-embracing land-use plan and land-use policy for the community.
Land-USE Plan — A committee comprising land surveyors, geologists, soil scientists, soil surveyors, civil engineers, geotechnical, engineers geophysicists, geographers, sociologists, economists, environment scientists, etc should be set up to draw up the land-use plan. The task of the committee is to carry out a detailed study of the environment, land and soil survey to determine the kinds of land and location of mineral resources, and recommend all possible uses the land can be put to. They will also advise on what the land should not be used for.
Land-Use Policy — a team of architects, town planners, developers, estate valuers, lawyers, finance experts, environmental scientists and public administrators will draw up the land-use policy from the land-use plan. The task of this committee is to enact a land ethic, that is, how the land is to be used.
Land Administration — There will be a land administration committee to be in charge and administration of the land-use plan and the land-use policy. Application for land request will have to be forwarded to the land administration committee for consideration and approval.
Environmental Policy Act
Protection of the land and the environment as a whole is the responsibility of all. The people can say with this poet:
“This land is your laud
This land is my land
This land was made for you and me”
WOODY GUTHRIE
National Geographic, Vol. 150 No 1, July 1976
The community should be signatory to the Environmental Protection Agency — EPA. It is better to conserve the land than to hope to reclaim it after wanton destruction. Our notion of land should not be that of an insensate mass of earth but as an organic capital which is depletable and therefore has to be economized if it is to last. The outcome of profligacy of land use is better imagined than experienced it is desertification in the extreme, a desolated place no one dwells in. Land is limited resource. In fact, the load not limited. Use of which land is put is not limited. In fact, the load on the land is stupendous. Nature must be managed logically, philosophically and scientifically to supply the needs of the people. The people should regard the land as one specially fashioned out and consecrated by God for the habitation of man. They should therefore agree not to desecrate it nor allow it to be desecrated.
Cosmopolitanism
Rural life is characterized by uncouthness while urban life is characterized by urbaneness. Coming to the city has a magic effect on people’s outlook to life. Urbanity brings about a revolution in the mentality of people. It brings diverse characters together. There is more interaction, and therefore, better social relation. Urban life is intense, requiring alertness and sharpness of the nerves, to survive. Those who are raised in cities are smarter and more street wise than their country fellows.
Creation Of New Cities — There, should be a deliberate policy to build cosmopolitan cities. In changing from a rural selling to an urban life care should be taken to adopt the urbaneness without the slum and grime. New cities must be planned and built along plans. They must never be allowed to sprawl or grow uncontrollably and haphazardly. The authority must prohibit shantytowns. Sanitation policies must be enforced. There must be a conscientious effort to enact an enabling policy that will engender a general climate of peace and security conducive to the mobilization of all available resources for the achievement of economic growth and social well being.
New cities will have to be built at low cost, using indigenous skill, to compare favourably with the cities of advanced nations. This will help to develop the planning and building skill of the indigenes. These urban cities should be created through industrialization not merely by a policy of building new capital cities with imported expertise at crushing cost, like Abuja. Because of the expected rapid rate of influx of people to the new cities infrastructures and utilities should be provided ahead of the population growth. Commerce, industries and institutions promote urbanization by bringing in a mass of people. When approaching the expected maximum population restriction of migration should be enforced.
Conurbation – A policy of conurbation should be adopted to unify this state of politically fragmented community of petty kingdoms and dukedoms by fusing adjoining villages and towns into one big town of a municipality status. Elected officials will run the administration of the town.
If the national Communality is a republic it should be so in its fabrics.
PLACEMENT SYNDICATION
In consideration of a city-community the people should participate more fully in the national affairs. The people should take their share in the national power sharing. They should get their people into key positions within the government at all levels — local, state and national. in non-governmental organizations, in commerce and industries, they should get their people into positions of power in the public and private sectors.
The people by nature and nurture should become more pushful, of strong passion, disciplined and hardworking. They may not be trusting but they should be trustworthy. It should be demanded of them to exemplify an impeccable character.
The people should be well represented in the national structure, occupying strategic and powerful positions in politics (government), economics, military and security, academia and technology. They should be so good and skilful that they become indispensable to the well-being or welfare of the nation, and the community will become the nerve centre of the nation.
A community will be at the losing end if its people are not in positions of influence. It is in realization of the importance and clout of holding a strategic position that I put forward this idea of placement syndication whereby a local community will need to adopt a philosophy of placing their people in strategic positions where they can in turn help other members of the community by giving them employment, promoting and patronizing their businesses, attracting development projects, facilities and amenities to the community. The people should be supportive of one another. They should not merely think of themselves as individuals but as a people. Individuals will help the people and the people will help the individuals.
When they develop and evolve into a strong force with civilized culture they could be like Rome from a humble beginning as a town into a city-state and eventually into a world dominion, or like England from obscurity into pre-eminence and world power.
