In pictures: Urban life in Zimbabwe

Homes, shops and informal businesses were bulldozed to the ground and hawkers and petty traders were banned from selling their wares on pavements.

Their vanishing means the city's streets are eerily empty.

Many now have no place to work from other than unused street corners, out of the police's sight.

The demolition of thousands of informal businesses was believed by traders to be a move to protect Chinese-owned retail shops, which have since sprouted in the capital and across the country.