AbstractThe paper discusses urban policy and performance in Nigeria against the background of the development of ideas and institutions affecting the cities since the early colonial period. It critically examines the patterns of rural‐urban relations, the policies for urban land‐use control, town planning and municipal government, pointing out the inadequacies, especially the inefficiency of the machinery for implementing otherwise well‐intentioned policies and programmes. The paper is especially critical of the lack of coordination and imagination in urban management, as well as the elitist orientation in urban planning and housing. It explores the potential value, as well as the limitations, of community self‐help programmes for housing and sanitation in towns, in circumstances of worsening economic difficulties and drastic cutbacks in public funding and private investments. Finally, while endorsing the vigorous programmes now under way for rural development, the paper points out the futility of the current aggressive anti‐urban back‐to‐land crusade, even in the legitimate concern to meet the basic needs of the predominantly r