Diffusion and adoption of informality concept in planning pedagogy: reflections from a Nigerian planning school

Abstract

The efficacy of traditional planning orthodoxies is challenged daily in many cities in Africa and the global South with colonial planning legacies. For this and other failures, urban planning aspires to reinvent itself. One key line of attack has been to redress past mistakes and misconceptions in the discipline through a revitalised planning education. Amidst rapid informalisation of cities in Africa and across the world, the current article seeks to learn more about the diffusion or spread of informality concept (i.e., knowledge and associated skills) at global and national systems, and potential influences on planning pedagogy in a planning school. The results show that diverse perceptions of informality concept exhibit different diffusion cycles in global and national contexts, dispersed widely in scope and time between the more dominant ‘informal sector’ aspect and the less dominant but rising ‘urban informality’ dimension -a sort of nomenclature shift. Although anti-informality persists in Nigerian planning education, a new upsurge is nevertheless evident.