Application of Smart City Concepts to Urban Service Delivery in Eko Atlantic City, Lagos

Smart city concepts offer significant potential to improve efficiency, sustainability, and responsiveness of urban service delivery, particularly in purpose-built developments that can implement integrated digital infrastructure from inception. This study examines the application of smart city principles and technologies to urban service delivery in Eko Atlantic City, Lagos, Nigeria's first master-planned coastal new city development. A professional application research design was employed, reviewing Eko Atlantic City's development framework, smart infrastructure specifications, and operational service delivery documents. Interviews were conducted with 11 city development managers, technology systems operators, and planning consultants involved in the project. The study evaluates the smart city systems deployed for electricity management, water supply monitoring, waste collection, traffic management, and digital connectivity, assessing their performance against smart city benchmarks. Findings are anticipated to reveal that while Eko Atlantic has deployed internationally comparable smart infrastructure for utilities and traffic management, the high cost of smart services is creating a premium urban environment accessible only to wealthy residents and corporate users, raising equity concerns about the transferability of this model to existing urban areas. Recommendations address development of policy frameworks for smart city concepts applicable to diverse income-level neighborhoods, adaptation of smart service delivery principles for public sector urban management in Lagos, and development of an affordable smart city implementation guide for Nigerian urban authorities. Keywords: Smart city, Urban service delivery, Eko Atlantic, Lagos, Digital infrastructure.