New utopian enclave? Or a testament to inequality?
Try taking a walk in much of Guatemala City: it's a pedestrian nightmare.
Motorcycles ride along busy sidewalks. Gun-gripping guards watch every passerby and assess potential attackers. Smoke-spewing buses drive through stop signs.
But hidden in the crazy sprawl of the chaotic capital, lies a dreamlike sanctuary where none of that exists.
In the city of Cayalá, a utopian domain created by one of Guatemala's wealthiest families, the streets are quiet and orderly, the shops are luxurious and the houses are accessible – if only for families from the country's small, wealthy elite , or for foreigners, such as the American diplomats stationed in the huge, recently built American embassy nearby.
Evoking the atmosphere of a serene Mediterranean town, Cayalá features milky white buildings with red-tiled roofs, a colossal town hall with Tuscan columns, cafes and expensive restaurants, column-lined plazas and walkable stone-paved boulevards. All of this is open to the public, except for the closed off areas where approximately 2,000 families live.
“In 20 years, Cayalá will be like La Rambla,” says Andrés García Manzo, a restaurateur who lives in one of Cayalá's remote villas, drawing a comparison with Barcelona's. legendary pedestrian-friendly boulevard. “You can walk everywhere here in peace and quiet.”
But critics say it is largely a playground for the wealthy, difficult to reach by public transportation, devastating to the environment and has attracted significant investment even as other parts of crime-ridden Guatemala City fall into disrepair.
But a fierce debate is flaring up over whether Cayalá is exacerbating, rather than alleviating, the problems of inequality and access to urban spaces, after demonstrators opposed efforts to thwart the country's new president, Bernardo Arévalo , were kept out of the area by armed men.
The spotlight on Cayalá – which translates roughly as 'paradise' in the native population Kaqchikel language — draws attention to the role of architecture and urban planning in one of Latin America most unequal countrieswhere an estimated 59 percent of the population of 18 million people live below the poverty line.
Cayalá began on a modest scale two decades ago when Guatemala's Leal family, which owns large swaths of some of the capital's last urban forests and had already built gated neighborhoods, hatched plans for a different kind of community.
They hired a Luxembourg-born architect Léon Krier, who had worked with King Charles III on a model city in southern England, to help plan Cayalá. Architects, including Richard Economakis of the University of Notre Dame, also signed on inspiration from the Parthenon of Athens to the design of the town hall of Cayalá.
Private security guards keep a close eye on the site, especially on weekends when shoppers flock to the area. The neighborhood has proven especially popular with visitors from neighboring El Salvador.
In a city where the upper classes have long lived in closely guarded communities, Cayalá might not have become the center of turmoil if not for the protests that exploded around Guatemala in October over the ultimately failed attempts to prevent Mr. Arévalo would come to power. .
While protests elsewhere in the country were largely peaceful, two motorists forced their vehicles through demonstrators at the entrance to Cayalá. armed men in ski masks, including a business owner in Cayalá, ruled out the demonstrators do not enter the area.
The episode left many stunned.
“I was amazed when I saw those images,” said Dora Monroy, who lives in a neighborhood next to Cayalá. “If someone brings a gun to a peaceful protest, that is a form of intimidation.”
Cayalá's developers declined to comment on that episode and did not respond to questions about criticism of the enclave. But in a statement, a spokesperson said: “Cayalá is a city for everyone.”
As they entertain plans for expansion, some wonder what impact it could have on some of Guatemala City's last remaining forests.
Bárbara Escobar, a biologist and conservationist, said the expansion could damage a basin crucial for groundwater recharge, while endangering habitat for foxes, raccoons and owls.
“I'm not against development, but you have to do things right,” she said. Ms Escobar noted that bus access to Cayalá is limited, making it largely a place for people wealthy enough to own a car, adding: “This is a zone of exclusion, designed for a privileged minority in this country.”
In a twist, there is also disagreement among Mr. Krier, one of the creators of Cayalá. Mr. Krier, who has worked in Cayalá since 2003, acknowledged that it was intended as a place where upper-class Guatemalans could live.
“You have a lot of things for the extremely wealthy,” he said. “We built for the middle and wealthy.”
But Mr. Krier also emphasized that he envisioned Cayalá as a completely gated development with two- to three-story buildings, inspired by ancient Persian, Greek and Roman cities, where people from all walks of life could gather .
“The city must be walkable, not only horizontally but also vertically,” he explained, adding that tall buildings make cities too dense, increase energy costs due to the need for elevators and prioritize real estate speculation over quality of life.
A departure from that vision came, Mr. Krier said, when “residents came together and democratically voted for gates,” effectively creating a series of gated communities within a development that would otherwise remain open.
A plan by Cayalá's developers to build high-rises during the expansion, which could yield higher returns from a commercial perspective, was a step too far for Mr. Krier, who recently resigned in response.
“The pressure on me as master planner became unbearable,” he said. “Skyscraping is, I think, an immoral act.”
Criticism of Cayalá has been mounting for years, with some questioning the project as urban areas that are potential gems, such as the old center of Guatemala City, are in decline.
Javier Lainfiesta Rosales, the founder of a company that provides marketing for startups, called Cayalá an “abomination” in a essay.
“In Cayalá there are no homeless people, begging children, malnutrition, street vendors, intimidation, clashes, extortion, assaults, corruption or inequality,” he said. “It's a piece of the First World in the heart of a city that's dangerously close to the Fourth World.”
Yet Cayalá has many defenders, who point out that people from different backgrounds visit the open spaces.
Warren Orbaugh, professor of architecture at Francisco Marroquín University, returned to the focus on the thousands of trees cut down to build and expand Cayalá.
“What wasn't once a forest here in Guatemala?” Mr. Orbaugh asked. “Cayalá should multiply like cells throughout the country, replicated in terms of scale and population density.”
Cayalá's appeal was on display this month as visitors, including indigenous families speaking in Mayan languages, wandered the grounds and took selfies in front of the sculptures. Young couples, entwined on park benches, whispered sweet nothings to each other.
Other visitors filed into Cayalá's cavernous Roman Catholic church. Oenophiles drank wine in cafes, and partygoers in a crowded Mexican restaurant drank margaritas.
A stone's throw away, behind the gates of Cayalá, it was eerily quiet in the well-guarded residential areas, located near a nature reserve.
Mr. García Manzo, the restaurateur who lives in Cayalá, said the three restaurants he owns there employ more than 100 people.
But he acknowledged that fear arose among his neighbors during the protests as rumors spread that hundreds of buses were heading toward Cayalá to attack the area.
“I told my neighbors that was impossible. If they come, they will not carry torches to burn our houses,” said Mr. García Manzo, emphasizing that he was against taking up arms to protect Cayalá. “The rumors caused a strong psychosis.”
This was not surprising for Carlos Mendizábal, an architect who detests Cayalá. Citing the need to continually repaint the white walls and repair the air conditioning, while increasing security, he called it an unsustainable “white elephant.”
“After all this time,” Mr. Mendizábal said, “Cayalá is still a shopping center masquerading as a neighborhood.”