Perception and structure of environmental annoyances in a developing world urban setting: A study of Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Rapid urbanization and weak control of development are changing the character of most cities in Africa and the rest
of the developing world. While trends in urbanization have received research attention, the day to day life experiences
of people in emerging and diverse physical and social settings in cities, which are beginning to adversely affect the
quality of life and the environment, have secured little research interest. Yet appropriate policy response to urban
decay will require not only greater understanding of urbanizing trends but how people themselves experience and
interpret the deluge of environmental issues associated with urban growth, especially the various contexts in which
they either annoy or represent nuisances to their life and the strategies that may be required to halt decay and restore
cities. This study explores how residents of Benin City, Nigeria, a fast expanding city, perceive environmental
annoyances and the coping mechanisms adopted in face of the identified nuisances. A pre-survey to elicit, describe
and validate suitable verbal bi-polar adjectival descriptors of annoyances in the urban setting was first conducted
using a limited number of respondents. From an initial list of 100 descriptive constructs some 40 most frequently
mentioned items were presented to 320 sampled residents for evaluation. By employing several statistical procedures
including Principal Components Analyses, results show that carbon monoxide emissions (automobile smoke),
flooding, epileptic power supply, noise from worship centres, foul odour associated with public transport vehicles
and the dearth of public motorcycle transportation were seen as some of the most impactful issues in the city. This
pattern of response seems to reflect the typical problems of poorly regulated urban activities, weak
infrastructure/amenities as well as uncontrolled, unplanned urban growth and expansion, that were affecting life
chances of the people and hindering their access to opportunities and comfort. While the study reveals that majority
of respondents devote little thought to adaptation and coping mechanisms to manage the crisis of urban
development, the study nonetheless recommends that planners and policy makers take seriously the need for more
controlled urban development employing indicators of environmental stress and nuisances as bases for city renewal
and regulation of the use of public spaces.