Analysis of Urban Densification and Housing Market in Bida, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines pattern of urban densification as an element of urban growth and how it can provide extra spatial information explaining variances of housing market of Bida. Census sampling techniques was adopted in sampling all 31,410, 46,489 and 47,394 buildings for the years 2008, 2013 and 2018 respectively and also 138 houses managed by the 3 registered estate firms in Bida. Data were collected using Google Earth to capture satellite imageries for the years 2008, 2013 and 2018, while handheld GPS was used to take coordinates of rental houses managed by registered estate surveyors and valuers. Point Density spatial analyst tool and Ordinary Kriging (OK) was used to analyse residential density and rental prices respectively, while Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was adopted to analyse and forecast residential density and housing prices with the aid of Map Algebra tool in ArcGIS. It was found out that the pattern of densification process confirmed urban economic theory for monocentric open cities, while OK model disconfirmed Alonso’s monocentric theory. The ANN model revealed that residential densities increase shall continue along the urban – rural gradient thereby causing a transition of open spaces and low density areas in to medium and high density areas in the coming years, while rental prices of housing apartments shall continue to decreases with decreasing distance to the city centre. It was therefore recommended amongst others that there is the need for rational densification for urban development in order check the increasing residential density that reduces green and open spaces.