Lagos

One way of looking at the current political tensions is a shift from Left-Right, to Local-Global or Rural-Urban. The first was an ideological conflict. The new way doesn't need to be. It is easy to forget how dramatically the world has changed in the last couple of hundred years. Industrialisation, urbanisation, travel, and massive reductions in child mortality have put the rules we live by under tension. The metropolitan area of Lagos has a population of about 21 million people. The largest city on a continent that has been turned upside down. Cities are a natural place to go to try get on your feet. The population of Lagos increases every year by about 275,000 people per year. Rural areas lend themselves to conservatism. A place to retreat to what you know. Where we feel comfortable. Cities force edgy change where we discover what we don't know. Today's Lagos, like today's Dhaka, Tokyo or Jakarta is where we go to be part of the change.