By Debbie Olujobi

The greatest cities around the world are a buzz of commercial activities, money is the air that feeds the frenzy of life in NewYork, London, Shanghai, Paris, Tokyo and my own dear Lagos.

Everyone is in a hurry, time is money and these cities don’t sleep, neither do the people who live in them. None of them can boast of clean air not to talk of a good quality of life. In the developed world, cities are not necessarily where you live they are just where you work. A good transportation system means that people can live in the suburbs and just commute to the city.

I do business with an american of Lebanese origin in New York and I was invited for dinner with the family once and was surprised to learn she lived 2 hours away by train in the suburbs. I was staying in a hotel right in the city centre and was not prepared to go on what I felt would be a tiring excursion so I declined.

She later explained to me that she and her husband had taken the decision to pack up their family and move to the suburbs where there were bigger houses at cheaper prices, better school districts and less crime. She credits the move for saving her family as she says most of the fights ended when they left the crazy life of the city for the simple life of the suburbs. The lure of the simple life is the same the world over.

My son attends a school not too far from home, we pay about a 1,000 Naira daily as toll on the most expensive bridge in Lagos and I am certainly not amused. My husband and I regularly reminisce about days past when we could just walk to school and back; simpler days that still exist outside the city.

By our calculation we would spend an equivalent of a £1,000 on the toll alone in any given year and I am one of those who support the court action against the state for charging a toll on a bridge built with tax payer’s money.

Education in the city is not necessarily better than in the country side; I actually think you stand a better chance of getting good education in the countryside. Please note I don’t refer to remote villages where there are only few teachers with questionable certificates and qualifications. I write of the new towns emerging as a direct result of development of individuals and corporations who are creating saner communities.

I have a couple of friends who were bankers and created one such community just outside Lagos. They approached a particular village, bought hectares of land and resold at a profit. They sold to like minds and almost 10 years later it is a beautiful haven.

They have schools now, taught by over qualified ex-bankers and other executives who would rather teach and earn half their former salaries than face the gruelling commute to the city centre on a daily basis. They have supermarkets, little cottage factories and the villagers have been completely incorporated into the rapidly developing town. My one regret is that I didn’t invest in what I had considered an evil forest way back then.

Often times decisions made by technocrats and politicians without consultation tend to  be disastrous. The major reason is that those in government don’t always have a true and clear picture of situations that affect the masses. One major problem most Nigerian cities face is over crowding and over population. Lagos State claims that almost 3,000 people come looking for greener pastures in the state daily.

That may not be the case for much longer as Lagos State has taxed most people and even companies back to their home states; draconian enforcement agents like KAI and LASTMA don’t make Lagos attractive to residents. Right now people actually prefer to live in border towns of Lagos State and pay less tax their than live in Lagos.

Besides with big companies moving production out of Lagos, the job trail will no longer lead to the city. With the construction of new roads and, in a few years interstate trains, Lagos will become like all other metropolitan cities around the world; just a place to work, not a place to live. The ease of transportation will inevitably fuel the exodus of people from cities to the country

I took a poll of young people since my manager dropped her bombshell and I found that most of them have been forced out of the city by high rent. Outside the city, accommodation is cheaper and bigger, schools are cheaper for their children, food is cheaper for the entire family and life is easier; not so congested, not so hectic.

The pattern I discovered to be common amongst the couples is that one person either starts a business in their locality while the other does the commute to the city. I took another poll of the older, more successful generation and discover the same exodus is taking place.

Most people built their homes outside the city because land was cheaper while they stayed in rented accommodation when they were still working. Retirement meant they no longer had ties to the city and even if they wanted to they could not stay because the costs of daily living was too high. I have not built a home outside the city yet but I am not altogether sure I would like to live out my retirement in any city.

The very rich any where in the world maintain a presence in the city but their palatial homes are in the countryside and I pray to follow suit. I end the simple life series with the theme song of another Television series. “Cheers” was an american  sitcom in the early 90s or maybe late 80s and it was centred around a bar, patronised by people who felt lost in the city of Boston.

They always met up in the evening to eat, drink and spend time together, they were a community of misfits and found the home they were missing in each other.

Cheers theme song….
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.