For the first time, the street toward Gorno Orizari is being reconstructed - a street that for decades sat in catastrophic condition. The City of Skopje's project foresees around 4,000 square metres of new asphalt, a new children's playground and a fully rebuilt sports court for safe recreation for children and young people.

Skopje mayor Orce Gjorgjievski announced that the reconstruction will provide safer, easier and more dignified movement for residents. But the word that weighs the most in the whole story is not „asphalt“ - it is „first time.“ First time - after decades.

Gjorgjievski addressed head-on the decades of empty promises. Residents, as he put it, used to be visited only before elections, with promises that were then forgotten. Instead of false promises, action has been promised. Whether that action will outlive the next election - that is the question the people of Gorno Orizari have probably already learned to ask.

Gorno Orizari, as part of Šuto Orizari, is among the neighbourhoods where basic infrastructure was for years treated as if it didn't exist. When a street sits in „catastrophic condition“ for decades, that doesn't happen overnight - it is the result of a long chain of decisions that were never made, budgets that went elsewhere, and priorities that some neighbourhoods simply never entered. The asphalt today is welcome. The question is why it took so long.