Panguila is a relocation settlement for residents of Luanda’s slums. The article chronicles the experiences of the Domingos family (all names have been changed). A second article will consider Kilamba New City, a satellite town designed for the country’s emerging middle-class. Although radically different in scale and vision, Panguila and Kilamba are both state-planned but foreign-constructed settlements on Luanda’s periphery. They exemplify the rapid suburbanisation of Angola’s capital and provide insights into the regime’s vision of modernity.