The Better India · 17 days ago

How Sanath Road in Gurugram Was Redesigned Into a Walkable, People-First Street

A street once so neglected that residents renamed it "Anath Road"-the orphaned road-has become a place where children play and neighbors pause on benches beneath preserved trees. When authorities proposed cutting nearly 400 trees to widen the chaotic Gurugram corridor, the Raahgiri Foundation offered a quieter rebellion: what if streets belonged to the people who walked them, not just the cars that sped through? The transformation preserved every tree, gave street vendors their own zone rather than displacement, and turned 11,000 tonnes of construction waste into new infrastructure-proof that dignity and pragmatism need not compete. Now wheelchair-accessible and lined with 600 native saplings, Sanath Road asks a question that lingers beyond its 2.5 kilometers: how many of our urban problems stem not from scarcity of space, but from forgetting whom that space should serve?