Srinagar, Aug. 17 -- Somewhere down the line, Srinagar began losing the things that made it a city rather than a collection of buildings.

Its open grounds became construction sites, its wetlands became real estate, its flood basins became plots, and its green patches became tempting pieces of urban property.

The historic city now keeps building bridges while losing the spaces that once gave its people room to breathe.

A recent appeal by a civil society group to protect Srinagar's green and open spaces should therefore be read as more than another dispute over a piece of land. It is a warning about the type of city Srinagar is becoming.

Every vacant patch now seems to invite a question: Why is this land still empty?

That question expo...