Abstract The advantages of urbanization outweigh its demerits thus the youth should learn to accept all the packages it comes with and deal with it exploitatively. In order for the poor urban dwellers to survive in highly urbanized cities in Nigeria such as Lagos, Abuja and the like, they need to be fast thinkers and explore all available sustainable economic opportunities that informal sectors such as scrap metal sector presents. There is no longer time for the youth to act expensive and fragile, when they are languishing in avoidable poverty. The time to get hands dirty is now since scrap metal business has offered a second chance to those whose lives would have been history if they had not put their energy and minds into such a productive economic venture. However, for scrap metal business to unfold beneficially to its subscribers (urban poor), the federal government of Nigeria needs to regulate it in terms of safety of participants, price fluctuation and heavy investment in it through public-private sector partnership. This is because there is an enormous potential of growth for the metal industry in the international market. Therefore, policy makers should appreciate the fact that the informal nature of the scrap metal trade is not a challenge to urbanization but rather as part of sustainable industrialization process which needs much attention. Keywords: Urbanization; Unemployment; Scrap metal.
Yakubu et al. (2026) studied this question.