A description of the neighborhood:
Most of the region’s two million people work for below minimum wage and have little access to a cinema, library or a sports pitch, says Brugada’s successor, current Iztapalapa mayor Raúl Basulto Luviano.
The neighbourhood has historically been a dumping ground for ugly, undesirable projects, including the city’s landfill and a large prison, which the Liberty Utopia now borders. “For decades they have put all the things that nobody wanted in the centre of Mexico City here. We were just seen as the periphery, the city’s back yard,” he says.
What does the Utopia contain?
At the Freedom Utopia, once 40,000 sq metres of wasteland, there is access to washing machines, and children can play in a sand park, visit the planetarium and stroke goats, ponies and cows in a petting zoo.
Free facilities include a 400-seat concert hall where classical music classes are held, and the temazcal – a traditional Aztec sauna, which the Spanish colonizers tried to outlaw to prevent men and women from sharing the steam room naked.
The most popular facility: a home for senior elder women:
The utopia’s most popular attraction is the house for older people. Inside the giant tipi-like structure 15 women are taking a dance class. Exercises focus on improving cognitive stimulation to stave off diseases that affect elderly people such as dementia, while counselling is offered to tackle trauma, depression and grief, says Michelle Rodríguez, a psychologist overseeing the program. “And as you can see they are like a family now, supporting each other.”
The centre offers free tai chi classes, yoga, aromatherapy and massages to the women, most of whom have lost someone close and say they were mired in grief and loneliness.
Even the photograph of older heavy-set people swimming in one of the city's 19 new pools is inspiring.
Please read the whole article. I think it's fascinating and inspirational that city planners from across the world viewed the presentation and are contemplating similar projects in their cities. A mayor from Mozambique says:
It’s an idea that is replicable not just from Addis Ababa to Maputo but from London to Bristol.
An official from the Bloomberg conference who promoted the project says:
“The utopias are not only extraordinary in their scale and breadth, they flip on its head this idea that poor people don’t deserve excellent services.”
And they have reduced the city’s chasm of inequality, says Pablo Lazo, an urban development director at World Resources Institute, an NGO studying the project’s impact.
Utopias are a successful way that philanthropic organizations can help the poor. The cost: About $500k to build a utopia and $5 million a year to maintain it.
What a great article for starting the New Year on a positive note.
