This study will attemptto look at the effects of Informal Settlements on housing quality in Lagos State, Nigeria. However,since it will be difficult and cumbersome in terms of time, financialresources, logistics and other technical areas to examine the entire LagosState, the researcher has chosen to use the physical environmentof Ajegunle, Lagos Stateas case study. The research will be limited to the review of the history anddevelopment of informal settlements in Lagos State, the coverage and pattern ofsuch settlements, their characteristics, their effects on housing quality andexisting strategies that have been used or are in use in ameliorating thesprawl.Methodology Datawill be obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary data will beobtained through field work; personal observation, interviews and picturedocumentation which willbe used to validate responses on the effects of informal settlements on housingquality based on physical, environmental and housing conditions of the studyarea.
Secondary data will be obtained from publishedmaterials from journals, textbooks; historical dataand trends of informal settlements in Ajegunle area of Lagos State will beobtained from government publications, gazettes.Obtaineddata will be analyzed and interpreted with tables, pictures and subjectivenarrations toillustrate the effects of informal settlement on housing quality in Ajegunlearea of Lagos State. Ethics approval will be obtainedprior to conducting field work. LiteratureReview Thereis often increased migration from rural to urban areas for better opportunities.Most of the migrants however, generally arrive the urban centres or areas withoutincome or skills and often continue to live on a level of poverty.
As a result,squatting, street sleeping, slum, and overcrowding have produced a new humansituation in the rapidly growing cities (United Nations, 1977). This new humansituation is the rise and growth of informal settlements. Variousdefinitions have been advanced to described what informal settlements are.
Forinstance, informal settlements have defined as residential areas of the urbanpoor more often in the cities of the developing world. They are found onpublic, private or customary land accessed by invasion or developed againstplanning, building and ownership regulations (Abbott, 2001). Srinivas sees informalsettlements as those settlements which are characterized by unauthorized use ofvacant public or private land, illegal subdivision and/or rental of land,unauthorized construction of structures and buildings, reliance on low cost andlocally available scrap construction materials, absence of restrictivestandards and regulations, reliance on family labour and artisanal techniquesfor construction, non-availability of mortgage or any other subsidized finance.
