Allison Shelley
Can cities function without a government? In Canaan, Haiti, residents give it a try.
Nine years ago, Canaan 1 was little more than a nameless, hilly swath of land patchworked by boulders and cinder blocks marking where people hoped to one day see proper houses, a hospital, a school, a police station and a basketball court.
Today, the neighborhood is one of many rapidly expanding areas of Canaan, Haiti’s newest city – named for the biblical promised land – home to between 280,000 and 320,000 people.
“We wanted to show the state who we are – that we can put down more than just one or two dollars here,” says Evenson Louis.
Read: U.S. News & World Report
Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.