Significance Of Culture & Its Friction With Housing And Modern-Day City Planning

Most planners or politicians will blame the people for low/lack of compliance with city planning. In fact, many will tell you how sophisticated the zoning, masterplans, density ratios, and building regulations are.

But here’s an aspect of that conversation many ignore: The people.

Especially in most emerging economies, where most of their city planning is copied from Europe. We often neglect what happens when planning ignores the cultural contexts of the people on whom the “modern” planning has been imposed.

Because before a city is a physical space, it is a social space. Before it is concrete and asphalt, it is a lifestyle. And if planning does not align with the way people actually live, it will always struggle.

Culture, Lifestyle & Planning: Why It Matters

City planning is not just a technical exercise. It is a cultural negotiation. And when planning frameworks reflect how people live, their income patterns, family structures, and communal dynamics, compliance improves naturally.

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When they don’t, friction grows. And that friction has consequences:

• Residents ignore regulations.
• Governments lose revenue.
• Infrastructure becomes strained.
• Trust erodes.

The deeper issue isn’t just plot sizes or zoning laws. It’s the misalignment between planning philosophy and cultural identity.

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What About African Culture Conflicts With Modern Planning? 

What Culture Represented.

One of the biggest misconceptions about African (or Nigerian) architecture is that it’s a physical expression, a “look” of mud walls, adobe, and ornamental facades. But historically, African architecture was never unified by material or visual form. It was unified by philosophy.

Across regions, from Yoruba compounds to northern Nigerian settlements, building forms differed, materials changed, and layouts evolved. But one thing remained consistent.

Architecture reflected community.

The courtyard is the clearest example. Whether configured in an I, U, H, or detached formation, the courtyard was always the heart of the home. Doors faced inward, life happened inward, security, privacy, and social interaction were centred within the compound.

The built form wasn’t the point; the social structure that it represented was.
It supported togetherness, family cohesion, shared responsibility, what many would describe as the Ubuntu spirit.

And that distinction matters deeply when we begin talking about city planning.

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The Friction: Inward Culture vs. Forward Planning

Traditional African planning is fundamentally inward-facing. It protects, gathers, and harmonises relationships.

Modern city planning, on the other hand, is forward-facing. It prioritises expansion, regulation, order, and individualism. It is typically formal, structured, and (often) imported. It imposed a rigid, forward-facing, highly formal planning model on an inward-facing, socially integrated culture.

This is where the friction begins.
The tension isn’t accidental. It’s structural.

In Lagos, for example, zoning laws and setback regulations are often uniform across very different neighbourhoods and income realities. Minimum plot sizes set at 300 square meters, whereas the economic reality of residents tells a different story.

So what happens?
People adapt. Smaller plots emerge, informal settlements expand, and regulations are bent or ignored. 

Compliance drops or is completely ignored, just because planning is/feels disconnected from reality.

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But Informality Is Not the Enemy

One of the biggest mistakes in modern urban governance is treating informality as a problem to eliminate rather than a reality to integrate.

When modern planning frameworks ignore the reality that traditional African settlements were not chaotic, they were socially organised and operated on relational logic rather than regulatory logic, and attempt to impose formality without cultural translation, they unintentionally produce the very outcomes they seek to avoid:
Slums, non-compliance, revenue loss, and fragmented urban growth.

Planning that ignores culture only creates friction.

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The Way Forward: Responsive Planning

What African cities need is not the abandonment of formal planning. Planning is essential. Without it, cities collapse under their own weight.

But planning must become responsive. That means:

• Recognising informality as data, not deviance
• Adjusting zoning and land use regulations to reflect income realities
• Designing infrastructure for compact, community-based living patterns
• Encouraging participatory planning between citizens and government

It means retaining structure, but applying it flexibly and planning for people where they are, not just where planning hopes they will be.

Sachetisation: An Idea For Planning For People Where They Are.

This is where the idea of sachetisation becomes interesting.

In consumer markets, sachetisation means selling goods in smaller, affordable units. It recognizes economic reality instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.

Now imagine applying that same principle to land use.

If residents are already buying and building on 60sqm or 80sqm plots — even when official policy mandates 300sqm — why criminalise reality?
Instead, why not recognise smaller land units legally, regulate them intelligently, and plan infrastructure around them?

This does not imply that we lower standards. It rather means that we align standards with people’s realities. This “sachetisation” of land use will:

• Improve housing affordability
• Increase regulatory compliance
• Enable better density planning
• Support infrastructure design that matches real demand
• Reduce chaotic, informal growth

In other words, it will help us integrate culture and economic reality into formal planning systems.

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Conclusion.

Copying foreign (successful) planning templates will not guarantee success, especially if it does not understand or acknowledge the complexities of African cities and communities. The success of African city planning will come from harmonising formal systems with culturally embedded lifestyles.

Because at its core, a city is not defined by its skyline. It is defined by how its people live, gather, build relationships, and claim space. If planning does not respect that, it will always be planning against the people instead of for them.

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