Informal elite urbanism and Pentecostal city-making: Rethinking ‘religious gentrification’ in Lagos (Nigeria)

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of Onike, a central Lagos neighbourhood, through the presence and expansion of the Pentecostal mega-church Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM). The paper engages with the concept of ‘religious gentrification’ to describe how MFM religious actors, operating as ‘informal elites’, reshape urban space through moral authority, political patronage and selective compliance with planning regulations. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with local residents and urban stakeholders, the study traces how MFM’s territorial and moral projects reconfigure local space and affect everyday life in a context of (relative) religious plurality. By connecting theorisations of informal urbanism with debates on gentrification and religious urbanisation, the paper suggests that Pentecostal city-making in Lagos is both spiritual and entrepreneurial, producing new moralised urban orders without necessarily transforming entrenched urban inequalities. The article contributes to global urban theory by showing how non-state religious elites drive urban change in the Global South through hybrid moral–economic logics. It argues for a rethinking of urban informality and elite power beyond secular and neoliberal paradigms, situating African Pentecostal urbanism within wider debates on governance, spatial inequality and the moral politics of urban transformation.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Urban Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗