Kabul's City on the Hill

Just south of the city center is the most famous of Kabul’s many dun-colored mountains. It is called TV Hill, after the telecom and broadcast antennas that crowd its peak like needles in a pincushion. One of the most visible signs of the Western presence in Afghanistan, it is hailed as a symbol of post-Taliban progress. In fact, TV Hill is a microcosm of a nation divided. Conflict has made Afghanistan, a traditionally rural country, more urban. Since the beginning of NATO’s war in 2001, many people have left their home villages and moved to cities looking for safety and work. These waves of migration have left on TV Hill a kind of sociological sediment, with different groups of different means settling at different levels up the slope. The higher, the poorer.