AFRICA GOING DIGITAL 100 CITIES IN TRANSITION (42) EKO ATLANTIC CITY, LAGOS NIGERIA
In the last eighteen months, Research and Development Publications Limited Lagos embarked on series of surveys and research looking at the enormous benefits which comes with the development of smart cities.
In well developed economies, smart city technology has been successfully deployed to achieve significant success in sectors like education, health, transport, security, safety, energy and waste management to mention a few.
The focus of Africa Digital Economy Handbook is among other things to highlight the benefits of the application of smart technology in education, health, and transport sectors and how this can be leveraged in the fast urbanizing cities of Africa.
Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent. By 2050, it will be home to more than 2.5 billion people with 55% of the population living in urban centers. African countries must see the indispensable benefits of smart cities and begin to take steps to develop different smart cities in the continent.
EKO ATLANTIC CITY
Being built on 10 square kilometers of reclaimed land from the Atlantic Ocean, Nigeria’s Eko Atlantic City is officially an International Commerce city in Nigeria and one of the smartest cities in Africa.
Eko Atlantic is a privately funded project in partnership with the Lagos State Government. On completion, it plans to be home to a quarter of a million people. The new city is connected off Victoria Island, a district in Lagos.
This ambitious tech-forward hub is underway following closely in the footsteps of Dubai and Singapore. This is the reason why Eko Atlantic City is known as the “Dubai of Africa”. This city is bringing a new model in Africa where urban governance is shared between the private and public sectors.
Billed as the largest real estate project in Africa, Eko Atlantic is being built on tons of sand dredged from the Atlantic Ocean off the coast. Eko Atlantic City’s completion year is 2023. But with 2 and 3 bedroom apartments being priced at $800,000 and more, it’s not yet clear when the Eko Atlantic City residential units are going to become fully occupied with the quarter of a million population capacity that it has.
Eko Atlantic City is one of the smartest cities in Africa.