Cities are engines that drive the economic development of any nation and for a city to perform this classical role to its residents, its dense network of infrastructure should be adequately developed and maintained.

This was stated by Abubakar Lawal Yelwa in a paper presented at the occasion of NITP Abuja chapter of Town Planners' day recently held at the Nicon Luxury Hotel Abuja.

He said there exist a direct and indirect symbiotic relationship between housing development, infrastructural development, employment, growth and development of Agriculture and industries as well as formal and informal socio-economic sectors of the economy.

Yelwa said what is required is to ensure an effective and efficient coordination mechanism and strategy that would holistically view provision of sustainable housing programmes as an essential tool for generating economic growth and development. "This would require proper planning, finance, execution and management of sustainable housing and infrastructural programmes for the country.

"Mass housing programme for the low and medium income groups can be conceptualized planned and executed, through a well articulated mechanism involving profit gained from high income sustainable housing as obtained in India using cross subsidy method," he said.