Assessing the Need for Developing and Managing Recreational Facilities In Nigeria

Abstract

The negligence of adequate planning and development of recreational facilities in Nigeria is a huge setback to cities achieving maximum utilization in their social, economic, physical and environmental sectors. This is coupled with many other managerial problems in maintaining the few available ones; and as such it has led to gradual decay of the nation's recreational areas and, hence reduced their benefit to the built environment. These benefits include general beauty, healthy lifestyles, increased leisure activities, communal interaction and preservation of natural system and maximizing abandoned land spaces. Assessing this need is valuable as the continuous growth of urban areas without considering the planning, development and management of recreational areas has led to the unpleasant environmental consequences. Using secondary source of data gathering, the paper reviews literatures on the general need for developing recreational facilities in Nigeria and critically examines the planning and development designs, the important facilities and management procedures for recreational areas. It asserts that there is a need for an improvement in landscape planning through effective physical planning, aesthetic management, development control/schemes and the enforcement of adequate management techniques.