Assessment of the Effects of Urbanization on Housing Condition in Ciroma Ward of Lafia Town, Nasarawa State

Urbanization is a phenomenon which is observed all over the world both in developed and developing nations. Urbanization comes with both the positives and negative consequences. The effects of urbanization on housing condition are observed in most town and cities. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the effect on housing conditions in Lafia town. To carry out the research the study adopted the descriptive design and the study population consisted of the household dwelling units of 15,898. Sample size was determined using Frankforth-Nachiamias which stated that 1% sample is enough for large population for a research to achieve maximum collection for analysis. Therefore, sample size of 1% was adopted for this study which consisting of 159 questionnaires administered. Data were collected through observation and structured questionnaires. Systematic randomly sampling was adopted in the selection of population from the sampling frame. The data collected were analysed using simple statistics and inferential statistics was employed. To further rank the effect of urbanization on housing condition a mean ranking analysis was used. The findings revealed that the structural and aesthetic conditions of 65.5% of the houses are in various degree of dilapidation. It was revealed that 68% of the environmental facilities are in bad conditions and of houses are poorly maintained. The result of ranking of effect of urbanization on housing condition revealed that solid waste ranked first and difficulty in assessing land ranked last. The study recommends for the upgrading of dwelling unit, condition and infrastructure facilities. The study concluded that urbanization has both negative and positive impact; therefore, it properly managed will bring about economic and social development.