“We keep blaming the people. Maybe it’s time we blame the blueprint.”
Slums are often painted as failures of the people who live in them — as if 800 million humans just didn’t hustle hard enough.
But look closer and you’ll see something else: proof that the cities we’ve built aren’t just unequal… they’re unprepared.
Makoko, Kibera, Old Fadama — these aren’t just urban “problems.”
They are receipts.
Receipts of policy gaps.
Receipts of development that skipped the majority.
Receipts of economies powered by the same people we pretend not to see.
And here's the truth:
Slums aren't proof of laziness.
They’re evidence of survival, creativity, and systems that were never built for all of us in the first place.
This edition isn't just about housing.
It’s about dignity, innovation, and who gets to thrive, not just survive, in African cities.
NoOrdinary Eyitemi
Editor-in-Chief, Decode Daily
The rent is high.
The roads are flooded.
The landlord is ghosting your maintenance texts while upgrading his Benz.
Welcome to African urban life — where the dream is loud, and the infrastructure is on mute.
“You’re saving for rent. He’s saving for Range Rover rims. Meanwhile, 64 million Nigerians are building empires in one room, no plumbing.” —Your inner realist with a soft spot for urban planning
The Gist
More than 800 million people globally now live in slums.
That’s 1 in 10 humans.
And over 64 million of them are in Nigeria alone.
(Source: UN-Habitat, World Bank, Business Insider Africa)
Let’s not sugarcoat it:
Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Cape Town, Kinshasa — Africa’s cities are swelling fast and building slow. The gap between population growth and infrastructure expansion is now wide enough to drive a danfo through.
So what happens?
Slums.
Everywhere.
No water. No sanitation. No electricity. Just vibes, survival, and straight hustle.
Why It Matters (to Your Career, Hustle & Wallet)
1. You’re Not Above It ,You’re In It
Even if you live in a BQ in Lekki or a shared flat in Kilimani, you’re still dealing with the fallout of the broken system:
🚗 Traffic from unplanned cities
💸 Rent hikes fueled by low housing supply
⚡ Blackouts because infrastructure wasn’t built to scale
📶 Poor network in “developed” areas
Urban inequality doesn’t need your permission to mess with your grind.
2. Housing Is the New Inequality Battleground
Let’s call it what it is:
- Formal housing? Too expensive.
- Informal housing? Too congested.
- Middle ground? MIA.
Developers are building luxury. Governments are demolishing slums. And young people are left renting forever, praying for a better landlord and buying expensive fuel in gallons
Affordable housing" is the new unicorn and everybody’s pitching it, no one’s building it.
3. Slums Are Innovation Zones in Disguise
Makoko in Lagos.
Kibera in Nairobi.
Dharavi in Mumbai.
These places aren’t just stories of poverty. They’re micro-economies, hustle universities, and labs of necessity-driven innovation:
🔋 Solar-powered charging kiosks
♻️ Youth-run recycling startups
🛰️ Community Wi-Fi and satellite mapping
🧃 Sachet economies serving hyperlocal needs
That “billion-dollar idea” might not come from Silicon Valley — it might come from a one-room shop with a broken ceiling fan.
4. This Is a Policy Problem, Not a Lifestyle Choice
Most governments treat slums like pimples: squeeze, demolish, cover with foundation.
But removing informal settlements without replacing them is like removing market women and expecting the GDP to rise. It’s not just cruel — it’s dumb economics.
What’s missing?
✅ Affordable housing
✅ Mass transport
✅ Water, waste, and energy infrastructure
✅ Policies that build, not bulldoze
You can’t fintech your way out of broken plumbing. Infrastructure is the real “investment-ready” play.
Across Africa, the Pattern Repeats
- 🇿🇦 Cape Town’s backyarders: Postcard city, but tens of thousands live behind formal homes, sharing outdoor toilets.
- 🇰🇪 Kibera: A tech-savvy slum with innovations more nimble than some gov ministries.
- 🇬🇭 Accra’s Old Fadama: Bulldozed for “beautification,” no backup housing provided.
- 🇳🇬 Makoko: Floating homes, floating dreams — but constantly under threat of erasure.
Everywhere: Young people move to cities chasing opportunity and land in congestion, cost, and chaos.
So, What’s the Decode?
Cities are the future. But not at this pace, and not at this price.
If we keep designing urban centers for the elite, while 60% of workers can’t afford to live near where they earn — we’re building cities for collapse.
And if you’re:
- A builder? Design for density and dignity.
- A policymaker? Fund what matters — homes, not headlines.
- A hustler? Know that your struggle is systemic, not shameful.
- A founder? Innovate for the base, not the ‘tech bros’.
TL;DR
Urban life isn’t broken because people live in slums.
It’s broken because cities weren’t built to include them.
800M+ people live in informal settlements and their daily hustle reveals where the real opportunities lie.
Don’t just demolish slums. Understand the message they are sending us.
Because in the cracked walls and tight corners of Africa’s informal spaces…
🔥 are solutions the formal world hasn’t dared to imagine.
One Last Thing:
You can call it informal housing.
You can call it a slum.
But don’t call it failure.
Because when millions are building lives in places your urban plan forgot, that’s not laziness, that’s resilience in its rawest form.
So the next time someone blames the hustle on the hustlers, remember this:
800 million people can’t all be lazy.
They’re just living in cities that weren’t built with them in mind.
Want to fix African cities?
Don’t just demolish what’s “ugly.”
Design what’s fair. Fund what works. Build for the many, not the few.
Until then —
We’ll keep decoding the blueprint, so it makes sense to you.
Source: UN-Habitat, World Bank, Business Insider Africa, Statista
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