Land Use Development Concepts
The land use plan for the State has been driven by the following rigorously established concepts:
• Growth Pole Concept
• Dispersed Concentrated Development
• Hierarchical System of Settlements
• Comprehensive Regional Development
• Integrated Regional Planning
• The Green Belt Concept

Growth Pole Concept
The growth pole concept aims at ensuring that development impulses are transmitted throughout a whole economy through poles or centres of attraction from where economic activities are generated throughout a specifically defined regional space. A growth pole may be considered to be an urban centre, an industry, an infrastructure (e.g. an Airport), a tourist centre or a tertiary education institution, any of which contains a set of expanding activities which induce further economic development throughout its surroundings. This is expected to induce a trickle down of development.

The growth pole strategy requires that developmental impulses exist in several places in the State, and that their potentials be tapped and maximized. Growth poles are, therefore, identified in depressed and underdeveloped areas, making use of existing economic potentials of such areas. By implication, amorphous spread of development without coordination is deliberately avoided.

Dispersed Concentrated Development
The concept of dispersed concentrated development has two components. The first is to initiate concentrated development in selected places in the State, as against diffusing development projects by spreading them thinly. The second is to ensure that these concentrated developments are dispersed evenly across the State. In this way, the depressed or lagging areas of the State are stimulated by initiating concentrated development in pre-determined locations and energising these to serve as growth poles for the sub-regions.

Hierarchical System of Settlements
There is the need to have settlements of different hierarchies functionally grouped together to achieve economies of scale and at the same time avoid sprawls and uncontrolled developments. This has made the concept of dispersed concentration of settlements attractive as a basis for settlements regrouping. A balance has to be achieved between economies of agglomeration (e.g. for purposes of trade) and the diseconomies of over concentration with its negative consequences of urban hypertrophy where effective and efficient service delivery becomes difficult to attain.

In pursuing this strategy, the existing urban settlements with their concentration of activities will have to be used as foci for development, until a minimum level of development is achieved at the local centres. This requires a deliberate and careful selection of settlements to serve as growth poles for different sub-regions. This approach will not necessitate resettlement of people but merely induce a redistribution of population and activities thereby influencing the organization of space and corresponding land use.

Comprehensive Regional Development
The concept of comprehensive regional development requires that the whole region – both rural and urban - be developed optimally in an integrated manner. In doing this, it is essential that the expected distribution of population and settlements be balanced with the objectives of preservation and exploitation of the natural and cultural resources of the rural environment.

Integrated Regional Planning
The regional development concepts and strategies proposed must be integrated with the other sections of this Regional Plan, including the physical, economic and social infrastructures and human resources development.

The Green Belt Concept
It is necessary to balance expected trends in urbanization with the objectives of preservation and exploitation of the natural environment and the achievement of high quality of life. It is in this regard that the idea of the green belt is adjudge appropriate in delimiting future city limits through creating rings of forests and green fields around major urban centres in which major or intense urban developments shall be strictly prohibited. Simply put, greenbelt strategy implies specific designation of certain areas around the existing major cities and urban centres as areas where no physical development of urban nature should take place.

Broad Land Use Types
The land use structure of Ogun State may be categorized into six:
• Administrative Division
• Human Settlements
• Economic Land Use
• Infrastructures and
• Institutional Land Use
• Protected Ecological Zones and Green Belts

Division of State into Sub-Regions
For the purpose of Regional Planning and Development implementation, the State has been divided into five sub-regions and the Development Pressure Area. The sub-regions have been determined primarily by their geographical locations, and their boundaries fixed by such features as local government boundaries, rivers and highways. The main considerations, however, include historical, cultural and trade relationships, and the need to have a rural-urban balance within each planning area. The sub-regions are listed in the table below along with the major settlements in each sub-region, the prevailing land use and local economic base.

Division of Sub-regions into Zones and Planning Areas
Each sub-region has been further divided into zones for regional planning purposes. While infrastructures are planned at the State and sub-regional levels, each zone is expected to be a surviving entity with clear hierarchy of settlements and economic activities.

Human Settlements
Human settlements in Ogun State are classified into urban and rural settlements. For simplicity, a population threshold of 20,000 has been adopted for this and all settlements with population less than 20,000 are classified as rural. Based on this classification, about 45% of the people of Ogun State live in urban settlements of which there are only nineteen as at 2005, while the remaining 55% live in rural settlements of which there are well over 2,500.

The number of urban settlements in the State is expected to increase significantly in the plan period, from the present 19 to 48, a two and a half fold increase. In addition, new classes of settlements with population in excess of 500,000 are expected to emerge. The total population projected to be living in urban areas by the year 2025 is about 6.5 million, constituting about 70% of the projected population of 9.3 million. This is a significant increase in the percentage urban population from 46% estimated for 2005. In the plan period, pressure from Lagos will continue to be the dominant factor in the emergence of urban settlements, and the development pressure area will take the brunt of this pressure. Mowe, Ibafo, Ojodu, Akute, Ota, Itele and Ifo will grow significantly and are expected to absorb the population.

In addition to the Lagos factor, however, the development plans by the present State Government, and the potentials identified by this Regional Plan will make significant contributions to the emergence of new urban centres in other areas outside the DPA.

Economic Land Use
Economic Land Use describes land devoted to generating economic returns outside the areas classified as urban settlements. There are four existing major economic land uses in the State as follows:

Agriculture
Agricultural land use in the State consists of rural farm holdings, flood plain farms and aqua cultures, plantations farm settlements and livestock farms. Generally, relatively little land is used for cultivated agriculture in the State compared with the total land area available.