Residents’ Contribution towards Improving Physical Quality of Neighborhood Open Spaces in Multi-cultural Community of Nigeria

Abstract

The residents’ contributions towards uplifting the status of neighbourhood open space such as Oja through diverse mechanisms is paramount. There have been challenges encountered by the planners, landscape architects and allied professionals towards improving the physical quality of Oja in recent time. Plethora of relevant literatures revealed persistence advocacy necessary to improve the physical quality of Oja in diverse forms. However, fewer studies have attempted to explore the residents’ contributions to its improvement through community efforts initiatives in South-west region of Nigeria. Consequently, this research explored the factors responsible to improvement on the physical quality of Oja through residents’ collective opinion efforts. The qualitative method was adopted for the study through focus group interview comprising thirty-five (n=35) Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba participants. The decision extracts from the deliberations were analysed using content analysis and QSR (10) Nvivo software. Research findings revealed that Oja physical quality could be improved upon through residents’ opinions and views as supportive mechanisms to government initiative drives. This research suggests joint collaboration efforts between governments; stake holders and community residents towards improvement of Oja. It is therefore recommended that residents’ participation and opinions in decision making concerning Oja could further enhance the physical condition towards higher satisfaction in Nigeria.