Sustainable Urban Renewal: Planning or People Oriented?

Cities of the world are constantly undergoing physical, economic and social changes. Such changes often impact on the existing plan or course of city growth and development. Moreover, due to high rate of urbanisation as experienced in most cities of the world especially African cities, there have been visible modifications of the environment (altering the existing plan) in a bid to accommodate more people within a limited space. High rate of urbanisation has led to such urban changes like growth in informal economy, traffic congestion, sporadic illegal developments, flooding etc. However, urban renewal is generally advocated as a means of restoring the urban environment to its original plan. Urban renewal is significant in that it is a means of remedying the city from complete deterioration. Through desktop approach, this study explores the significance of urban renewal in the face of sustainable city planning and development. The study holds that urban renewal has been generally flawed as not being integrative of various planning dimensions especially in relation to inclusive planning. The work is significant as it highlights means of applying the sustainable development concept in urban renewal especially in the Nigerian context in order to make for more comprehensive outlook and intervention for city sustainability.