Infrastructure, Architecture, and the Production of Inequality in Nigerian Urban Space: A Critical Political Economy Framework

The spatial production of urban inequality in Nigerian cities is fundamentally mediated through differential access to infrastructure and architectural quality, and a critical political economy framework for understanding this mediation is essential for developing both analytical tools and transformative planning proposals. This dissertation develops an original critical political economy framework for analysing the production of spatial inequality through infrastructure and architectural provision in Nigerian urban environments, drawing on empirical evidence from four cities representing contrasting urban scales and regional political economies. The theoretical framework develops three original analytical concepts: infrastructural citizenship, which theorises the unequal constitution of urban rights through differential infrastructure provision as a political rather than technical phenomenon; architectural rent extraction, which conceptualises how premium architectural development in global-standard enclaves within Nigerian cities extracts value from the surrounding city fabric while producing spatial segregation; and subaltern spatial reproduction, which theorises the architectural and infrastructural self-provisioning practices of low-income urban communities as a labour process embedded in the political economy of urban survival. The empirical programme investigates spatial inequality production in Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, and Kano through a combination of spatial inequality index mapping using composite indicators across neighbourhood zones, political economy analysis of infrastructure investment decision-making through budget analysis and official interviews, and ethnographic investigation of architectural self-provisioning practices in four selected low-income settlement case studies. The dissertation makes an original contribution to urban political economy, spatial justice theory, and the critical sociology of architecture. Keywords: urban inequality, political economy, architecture, infrastructure, Nigerian cities.