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ABSTRACT
The high rental value of core city areas has always influenced the formation of slums at the peripheries or outskirts of towns and cities of the developing world. However, a peculiar inner-city slum that has persisted over the years is the Ogui slum in Enugu, Nigeria. This paper tried to identify the factors that has made this inner-city slum to persist. One factor that has acted as a boost for others to thrive is the indigenous dwellers' hold on land. The other factors include the centrality of the slum in the town and its close proximity to various schools, markets and places of work. However, the unprecedented influx of people into Enugu in the early 1970's overstretched the existing facilities in the city and turned the indigenous land of Ogui into a slum. The paper went on to give recommendations on how to effect renewal schemes for the study area. Critical to this effort is the employment of public participation in the process as being emphasized by the Urban Management Programmes (UMP) of the UN - Habitat projects. More critical to the renewal effort will be the prompt payment of adequate compensation to indigenes for lands acquired for the programme.
KEYWORDS: Inner-City Squatting, Peri-Urban Squatting, Slum
INTRODUCTION
The formation of squatters and slums in the cities of the developing world has been on the increase. Evidently, explosive urbanization and population increases have their manifestation in high density of persons within limited space which arose due to rural-urban migration, over concentration of socio-economic activities and non-compliance with planning guidelines (Sule,2001). The squatter and slum led to massive urban sprawls in the peripheries due to the fact that the new migrants cannot afford the rent of the central areas. For instance in Bangkok, unplanned and uncoordinated development in the metropolis of 9 million people (14 percent of the country's population) is characterized by massive urban sprawl radiating up to 50 kilometres in all directions (Stickland, 1993).
In retrospect, a regional workshop sponsored by several United Nations' agencies in 1975 emphasized that the ominous background in the developing countries was the extremely explosive urban growth which has resulted in the development of numerous marginal settlements in which people live in an environment of squalor, lacking...