I’m in Ahmedabad, India, standing where families once built their homes under the shade of large trees. Today, those houses are a flattened dust bowl at the edge of a construction site. Apartment buildings are replacing the low-rise, high-density settlement called Ramapir No Tekro, the city’s biggest informal settlement.
I’m feeling the inevitability of political forces intent on shaping the city in a new image. Walking through the community, I see shops closed and homes reduced to rubble. It’s hard to reconcile these images with the once-vibrant streets I remember.
