Why Africa's Largest City is a Terrible Place to Live

The largest gathering of people on the African continent is on this patchwork of islands and peninsulas on the coast of the gulf of guinea..Lagos.

It’s one of the 20 largest cities cities in the world.

But it’s also the second worst city to live in, only doing better than the capital of Syria, which is in the middle of a civil war. And a big part of WHY, has to do with its geography and it’s early history. The strange way in which Lagos is laid out, tangled between land and water is an essential part of its soul.

The first outside explorers said no one in their right minds would plan to build a big city on such an unusual configuration of lagoon and island.

Yet, here Lagos stands, 21 million people strong. And it wasn’t always this way.


The wife of a Greek businessman described it as heaven on earth when she visited in the 1940s. But now it’s worse than literal warzones

How did it get here? And how did things get so bad?

Check out my sources HERE: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o...

Music by Tom Fox - Waiting For A While (JHTNR2262)