Urban Open Space Management and Implications on Environmental Quality of Lagos Satellite Towns

Overpopulation has progressively impacted on the quality of urban life especially in developing countries of the world including Nigeria. The constant and arbitrary encroachment on virtually every available land space is a sad phenomenon distorting living patterns in most urban centres and resulting in poor environmental quality. The very building fabrics of architectural structures are seriously affected by overcrowding with negative impacts on the design-worth of the built environment where open spaces are lacking or available but not sustained through appropriate landscape designs. This study examines the causes and implications of open space abuses and the decay of city infrastructure within the satellite towns of Lagos, Nigeria. It reveals that the various abuses are traceable to lack of landscape plan and ineffective plan implementation by the management authorities of the public sector. It noted that while the public estates are left to rot away due to poor management plan and strategy, the private counterparts have better maintenance strategy with effective implementation. The paper concluded that overpopulation in the urban centre of Lagos and other emerging cities of developing nations can be better managed if the public sector adopts the more effective implementation and monitoring strategies of the private sector.