The empirical development of a disaggregated residential location model in Nigeria

The awareness that residential use is by far the largest consumer of urban land has led to the development of numerous models of residential location. One useful and fruitful approach to residential location modelling employs spatial interaction models with the embellishments of the entropy maximizing methodology. When disaggregated in terms of human attributes and spatially, interaction models could be made to reflect much of the theoretical underpinnings of residential location. A singly constrained version of such model is developed and calibrated for Jos, a city in the Benue Plateau State of Nigeria using the hypotheses that residential location is determined by the proximity of workers to the place of work, the benefits that could be derived from living in particular areas of the city and the ability of a worker to match transport costs and housing rents.The degree of correspondence between reality and the model's prediction confirms not only the assumptions but also highlights the need for the maximum level of disaggregation.