I arrived on the island with the usual optimism of someone who believes the built environment can shape lives. In Jamaica, there’s no shortage of aspiration: plots of land carved into hillside dreams, concrete shells waiting for finishing touches, and families who believe in the transformative power of securing a home. But a week after Hurricane Melissa finished its wrecking-ball act, I arrived to a very different real-estate picture. One marked not by blueprint-perfect ambition but by stripped roofs, gutted walls and the stark fact that real-estate is, after all, a human-survival domain.
