Lagos Mainland, packed and spread

satellite view, Ikeja

Stay where you are

In Lagos people tend to stick around where they live. Traffic may be one reason, the expanse of the city another and the fact that there is no key attraction able to draw crowds in the evening or on week-ends from one end of the city to the other. Very few parks, no square where people would feel happy to spend some time hanging around. The only big migration is work or religion related.
Security also plays a role. Today streets are safe on the islands and increasingly in mainland's neighbourhoods during the day. At night, it is a matter of bad luck but stories of attacks are still in the news in some areas; the area boys are still alive and potentially dangerous. As a result, streets are not considered as an area one should expect to spend too much time on, except of course, for those running a business there: plenty of activity takes place on the streets, from water carriers, gas and airtime sellers, hairdressers, shoe repair, fruit and and vegetable sellers, restaurants, etc... These ones seem to live on safely.
But trust is not there among fellow Nigerians so properties are walled and gated.

packed and spread

On the mainland though, space is used up, houses are packed against one another, providing from the sky an impression of giant computer motherboard stuffed with corrugated-iron transistors and microchips, streets are like veins

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Nigeria, the land of plenty

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