2026: the year the map became ground.

Greenfield cities die in the gap between announcement and asphalt. Dholera spent years in that gap — which is exactly why 2026 matters: it's the year the connective tissue stopped being a rendering.

In March, the 109-kilometre Ahmedabad–Dholera Expressway was inaugurated: four lanes, access-controlled, expandable to eight. An access-controlled expressway is not a widened road; it's a commitment about what kind of traffic — and what kind of economy — the corridor expects.

The airport followed. Phase 1 civil works finished in December 2025, calibration flights flew in early 2026, and passenger service is expected by December 2026 — a date we'll believe when the DGCA does, and we say so plainly because that's the difference between a status and a promise.

Why does connectivity matter this much? Because a 920-square-kilometre planned city is betting it can pull people and industry from one of India's fastest-growing metros. The master plan talks in lakhs of future residents and jobs — projections, and labeled as such — but projections need roads to travel on. As of this year, they have them.

Our advice stays boring: infrastructure milestones de-risk a region, not a plot. The expressway opening moved the whole board; whether your square on the board is worth owning still depends on the paperwork attached to it.