CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1              Background of the Study

Introduction

            Urbanization is the process by which large numbers of people become permanently concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities. In this process the number of people living in cities increases compared with the number of people living in rural areas. Natural increase of urbanization can occur if the natural population growth in the cities is higher than in the rural areas. A country is considered to be urbanized when over 50 per cent of its population lives in the urban areas (Long, 1998).

            Urbanization is one of the oldest and most pervasive processes of change that has helped shape societies around the world. While the range of situations is indeed large, a caricature is often used in this text by contrasting processes, impacts, and policy in older industrialized countries with those in newer industrialized countries and developing countries. (Bryant, 2012).

Driven by values and the perceptions of the realities of quality of life differentials (e.g., jobs, living conditions) between urban and rural areas, the results and consequences have been vastly different in the older industrialized countries and developing countries.

            At the same time, urbanization has also been regarded as synonymous with urban expansion, particularly the type of urban growth known as urban sprawl, a set of processes that operate at regional (or micro) and local levels. Macro scale processes of urban growth are easy to link to urban expansion and sprawl. However, expansion of the urban area can take place in the absence of major increases in population and activity concentration in urban regions simply as the result of people’s search for alternative lifestyles and of the different and evolving needs of human activities, particularly in the older industrialized countries. (Bryant, 2012)

            Land pricing can be described as the amount someone is willing to pay for a piece of land and it ebbs and flows with the economy and current land market (Jennifer and Melville 2012). This cost bought about by different factors, one of which is increase and reducing space for structural development, the land price, land intensification processes in urban centres become a subject of geographical enquiry for urban settlement geographers. This is also of research interest.

            The impact of urbanization has significant effect on land use and price of land in Sabon-Tasha. It is a well planned area with good housing construction, the population started increasing in the 1980s to the 90s. The most tremendous increase was in 2000 after the religious crisis, so many people moved from different areas to Sabon-Tasha because of its peaceful environment and favourable housing condition.

            Urbanization has been on the increase world-wide. A growth rate of the urban and rural population between1990-l995 was 0.7% and 2.4% respectively. By 1996, the world population stood at 5,767,774 billion persons, with 45.7% living in the urban centres while the remaining 35.5% lived in the rural areas. By 2030, the level of urbanization world-wide would have risen to 61.1%. Nigeria is not an exception to this trend (Abiodun, 1998).

            Urbanization is no longer a new phenomenon in Nigeria. People have been living in settlements and there had been massive movement of people from the rural to urban areas or cities up till date. This implies that urbanization is a progressive concentration of populations in towns and cities. The United Nations states that urbanization is perhaps, the best symbol of the radical, physical, economic and social transformation that mankind is passing through as a consequence of development. This means urbanization necessitates development by being a tool of and also a product of development. It seems reasonable to assume that many characteristics and values of a society will be reflected in the spatial organization of human landscape (Abada, 2010).

            The studies of urbanization especially in peripheral social formations most often focused on what may be called the spatio-demographic level of analysis. In other words, they emphasized on such phenomena as the spatial pattern of urban growth, the evolution of the urban hierarchy, variations in the rates of urban-in-migration, the occupational structure of the cities and so on (Ezeani and Elekwa, 2010).

            Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can describe a specific condition at a set time, i.e. the proportion of total population or area in cities or towns, or the term can describe the increase of this proportion over time. So the term urbanization can represent the level of urban development relative to overall population, or it can represent the rate at which the urban proportion is increasing (Wikipedia, 2014).

1.2       Statement of the Research Problem

Urbanization has greatly led to intensive land use and high land pricing in cities and suburb of cities. Intensive use of urban land as a process in which the land efficiency and benefit can be improved to make good economic, social, and ecological benefit through increasing land investment, improvising management and giving ultimate potential of the land use.

Urbanization leads to increase in the demand for land utilization and land resources different localities. This is also accompanied by various environmental problems. Shin et al has grouped urban environmental problems into three categories: pollution, congestion and degradation of natural support system with at least types of impact on: productivity, human, health, amenities, and ecology (Mabogunje, 1968).

The physical and environment challenges of cities as identified include: conflicting land use such as the infiltration of commercial land use on housing or complete succession, poor aesthetics city, scape, high building densities and high rate of building collapse. Infrastructure problems include narrow and poorly constructed roads, poor drainage. Other include: traffic congestion, pollution and flooding particularly in areas inhabited by poor (Bayowa, 2011).

Researches have been done on numerous urbanization problems extending from impact of urbanization on economy, effect of urbanization on physical planning and so on. Nevertheless, the impact of urbanization on land use and land pricing has not been appropriately investigated in Sabon-Tasha. This urbanization problem will bring to dainty several issues concerning urban land housing, cost and pricing, challenging pattern of land use above all in Sabon-Tasha.

1.3       Research Questions

Below are the research questions formulated by the researcher, answers to which would lead to solution of the problems for the study.

a) What is the pattern of land use in Sabon-Tasha?

b) What is the relationship between land use and land price?

c) What is the pattern of temporal variation in land pricing in Sabon—Tasha?

d) What are the factors responsible for the temporal variation in land price?

1.4       Aim and Objectives

The aim of this work is to examine the impact of urbanization on land use and land value in Sabon-Tasha, Kaduna state. This aim will be achieved through the following objectives, which are to:

1. Examine land use pattern in the study area.

2. Determine the relationship between land use and land price

3. Examine the temporal variation in land pricing in the area.

4. Determine the factors responsible for the temporal variation in land price.

1.5       Significance of the Study

The importance of this study is to contribute towards understanding some of the processes and dynamics of urbanization in the area of study. It will also assist in understanding how urbanization has affected the pricing of land and its uses. The work is beneficial to agencies such as KASUPDA, students and researchers in the field of urban studies and housing.

1.6       Scope of the study

This research will cover urban structure development between 1985 and 2015 in the area. The variation of land pricing will also be examined between 1985 and 2015. The work is limited to Sabon-Tasha suburb of Kaduna metropolis. In terms of content, it will be limited to issue concerning land pricing and value, changing land use pattern at the micro level and the consequences of these dynamics of the urbanization processes.

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