For many Palestinians, the norm is tight-quartered living with barely a garden in sight, no defined sidewalks and a poor water system. But this is about to change with an ambitious plan for a new way of living.

Just six miles north of Ramallah, Palestinians have begun planting thousands of evergreen tree saplings as part of a major greening project to grow a forest to hug the edges of what will be the first planned Palestinian city.

The city is already named Rawabi, Arabic for “hills”. For Palestinians it presents a new kind of urbanism, which aims to draw middle-class professionals away from smoggy towns and villages towards a better way of life.
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