Road Improvements and Economic Activities in Samaru, Zaria, Nigeria

Abstract

As road improvements take place, economic activities respond accordingly to take advantage of better access, which then result in changes in types or prevalence of economic activities along improved road corridors. As this process progresses, some classes of economic activities decline or increase and in some cases new ones emerge. To determine some of these effects, an inventory of economic activities along the corridors of interest was undertaken for the current period (post road improvement period). Interviews were conducted with one hundred purposively identified respondents aimed at eliciting some historical perspective on economic activity variations between the years 1980 and 2020. To back up the oral narrative, additional information from archival sources were employed to establish historical changes in building characteristics and road infrastructure attributes along the corridors under study. The International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) codes were then used to categorize economic activities for the different epochs. Findings indicate that among other universal factors such as, access to electricity and improved level of security, improvements on road infrastructure appears to have accelerated the influx of more and new types of economic activities in the study area. Other spinoff effects include building and land use change, uncontrolled gentrification, rent increase and urban management concerns on demographic, social, structural, security and economic issues. A further improvement in road designs that will accommodate the needs of adjoining economic activities and the development of policies that will help manage uncontrolled gentrification, for instance, would largely reduce the undesirable urban management implications stemming from road improvements.