own herds of goats. There were a lot of palm and date trees,” Sbai recalled from his childhood days in the early 1970s when his family still lived in a nomadic tent.

But that was also the time when things began to change rapidly.

The oasis started to receive less rain and, sometimes, even none at all. These changes made agriculture an unreliable source of income and a lot of people abandoned their lands and move to the new centre of M’hamid, just outside of the oasis.

By the end of the decade, Sbai’s family also moved so he could go to school there. Empty lands left behind were a perfect prey for the desert. Studies show the Sahara has expanded 10 percent in the past century.

Bahadi Habib stands in theundergoing some change to its individual character, be it a new tower rising, a decades-old old business closing down, or an empty shop rotting away. In one four-block stretch between Broadway and West Broadway, there are no less than 31 empty storefronts, some of which have been vacant for at least five years. In another six-block stretch, between Sixth Avenue and West Street, just five street-level businesses exist.

All of this can make you wonder, how has the city let such a vital artery become so corroded?

The answer is as complicated as Canal Street’s tangled identity. At its western end, the wealthy residents of Tribeca and Hudson Square have purposefully chosen to live along a desolate streetscape lined by walls of glass and concrete. At its eastern end, waves