Thread by @titojourno

Went for a walk around Naya Saddar this afternoon. Empress market looked soulless, forlorn and forsaken. Nice building though. The landa bazaars in the alleys have all gone as have many of the shops adjoining the park. Wonder what the fate of the Regal second-hand booksellers >

, a key feature of Sunday’s in the area, is going to be. The mosque, which has grown at the most phenomenal pace over the years, remains untouched. The fruit hawkers and the Quettawal cloth sellers in nearby streets continue to attract crowds while dodging/paying off the >

authorities. Meanwhile, the proposed food street in Bohri Bazar, with its awkward steel awning blocking the view of Empress Market, remains incomplete and abandoned - an ominous sign of the post clean-up attitude to the area. Meanwhile, the iconic and original Nimco in Bohri >

Bazar seems to be taking preemptive steps by demolishing a large part of their tiny shopfront and moving next door.
A huge corner plot nearby, next to the Parsi place of worship where the old Irani Jahangir restaurant stood, now has a huge billboard advertising ‘Residency >

luxury apartments and shops.’ Gentrification (which often means slummification given our aesthetics) here we come! The recently restored Jahangir park nearby offers a sign of what is to come: a public park in the town centre walled off and restricted to ‘families only’.
If >

If the idea is to gentrify the area, to the delight of the builders’ lobby, and ignore the actual needs and demands of the people who live, work, shop and hang out in Saddar - distinctly not the gentry by any means - it is a terrible idea. It is motivated not by any love for >

the area, its people or its aesthetics. It is motivated by that characteristically clueless and callous attitude to the needs of the poor of our car-fixated elite — not to mention their brazen, naked greed.
END