‘Living proof that you can spend money on the poor’: Utopia comes to Mexico City
A visionary mayor has harnessed her imagination to promote health, wellbeing and culture in one of the Mexican capital’s most impoverished neighbourhoods
M exico City’s mayor has never been afraid to court controversy. Clara Brugada has taken some imaginative steps in her efforts to undo decades of economic and cultural inequality in one of the capital’s most impoverished neighbourhoods.
That includes a Boeing 737 converted into a library, its overhead lockers stuffed with books, and a park where 50ft animatronic dinosaurs tower. Both are part of Brugada’s Utopias project.
On a sunny weekday at the Freedom Utopia – one of 15 centres built to promote health and wellbeing for the working classes – a father and son rally a ball on a tennis court, teenage girls jog around a racetrack, and 20 older retirees, men and women, swim steady laps of the pool.
Such sights might be common in many modest neighbourhoods with a decent leisure centre in the global north. But in Iztapalapa – where people previously had no access to cultural activities or sports – this is not just unusual, it is subversive.
