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Port Harcourt opportunities caused by the Structural Adjustment Programme introduced in 1986, and further economic dislocation arising from the sudden abandonment of SAP in 1993/4, the population of Port Harcourt continued and continues to grow fast upon the basis of accelerating rural impoverishment and its own large and youthful population base. Moreover, while Port Harcourt shares many of the current economic woes of Nigeria, as the centre of the oil industry it is comparatively advantaged and it is probably growing faster than other urban areas in the country (for instance, recently Shell has relocated administrative staff from Lagos to Port Harcourt, and its sub-contractors are following suit). Thus the current World Bank estimate of a greater Port Harcourt population of around one million (about 25% of the population of the old Rivers State) is probably correct.

21.4 THE MODERN CITY - TRENDS AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

The rapid population growth of Port Harcourt between 1953 and 1994 has pushed the physical limits of the city northwards outside the restricted high ground between the Bonny River and the Amadi Creek. Thus for about ten kilometres up the Ikwerre and Aba Roads (as far as the Shell housing and administrative complex) creating a western biased fan shaped urban complex with its southern apex at the Rivers State Government Secretariat. Urban outhers extend the fan loosely to Uniport and Choba at the Old Calabar River crossing, and to Obigbo where the Aba Road crosses the Imo River, both places where Port Harcourt commuters are building houses on cheaper land. (Also people commute from Owerri, Aba and Bori.) A smaller fan shaped complex extends about two kilometres to the south of the secretariat including the Old Township and its associated extensions limited to some degree by the low-lying swamps further south, but extending Southwest as a narrow arm to Borokiri. Moreover, major industrial complexes are extending the urban area on the high ground west of the Bonny River and encouraging expansion along the Bori Road. These developments include the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) refinery just Northwest of Okrika Island, the National Fertiliser Company of Nigeria (NAFCON) at Onne, Onne Port, and the petrochemical works being constructed at Eleme (Map 6.).

The modern city is no less divided than the city plan of 1913. On the one hand are extensive planned layouts to the North, such as the three phases of the new GRA, the Federal Government housing scheme, the Shell residential layout, the Trans Amadi industrial area, and the smaller layouts between these areas. On the other hand there are the unplanned areas based on the original settlements of the area (such as at Rumuokuta on the Ikwerre Road and at Oroabali west of the Aba Road) and unofficial settlements particularly on the watersides.

The waterside settlements are a feature of the modern city, providing land near to the city centre for people who have nowhere else to go and it is perhaps symbolic that the first settler at the Bundu Waterside established herself in 1954 (personal comments of Mama Bundu to O.N. Douglas). Such settlements are an extension of the city into unsuitable swamplands to the South, and although some of these areas have been sand-filled they will remain subject to flooding and poor drainage.

Port Harcourt is a prime concentration of industry most of which may be said to be environmentally hazardous, including the oil and petroleum industry, metal fabricating, fertiliser, engineering, food processing, paint, plastic, tyres, enamelling, gas bottling, and glass manufacture.

Modern Port Harcourt is typical of a medium sized industrial and administrative city in the developing world. Thus large areas of the city are officially laid out for residential, 242