A boring capital for a young democracy. Just the way residents like it.

Mention Belmopan, Belize’s capital located deep in the country’s interior, and many Belizeans will disparage the city as a bastion of bureaucrats who are not only boring but also devoid of nightlife.

“I was warned, ‘Belmopan is for the newlyweds or the almost dead,’” says Raquel Rodriguez, 45, an art school owner, of the response when she moved to Belmopan from bustling coastal Belize City.

Belmopan is not exactly known as a paradise for young city dwellers and is one of the smallest capitals in all of America. It has only about 25,000 residents and a cluster of hurricane-proof, heavy on the concrete, Mayan-inspired Brutalist buildings.

The capital of Central America’s only English-speaking nation can feel startlingly different from the hectic capitals of its neighbors. In origin and design, Belmopan has more in common with the capitals of other former British colonies, especially in Africa.

But Belmopan may also be a prism through which we can view the development of Belize, which has emerged as an exception in Central America. In a region where rulers embrace authoritarian tactics, Belize has developed into a relatively stable (if young) parliamentary democracy with a history of peaceful transfers of power.

The capital, sometimes serenely calm, has a reputation for safety and quality of life. In a sparsely populated country of less than half a million people, Belize’s welcoming atmosphere also reflects Belize’s extraordinary ethnic diversity and propensity to absorb migrants from other parts of Central America.

Think of the open-air market where many residents buy their food. Hawkers greet customers in Belize’s official language, English or Kriol, the patois formed centuries ago when British brought enslaved Africans to what is now Belize.

Other sellers speak Mayan languages ​​such as KekchiMopan and Yucatec, highlighting indigenous peoples who have long lived in Belize or moved to the country from Guatemala or Mexico. Reflecting different waves of migration, others practice their professions in Spanish, Chinese or Spanish Plautdietschan archaic Germanic language influenced by Dutch.

Like many others in Belmopan, Johan Guenther, 71, a Mennonite farmer, came from somewhere else. He was born in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, home to large Mennonite communities, and came to Belize at the age of 16.

He then tried his luck in Bolivia for a while, but decided he preferred the milder lifestyle of Belize. He lives with his wife in a small farming settlement outside Belmopan and comes to the capital to sell cheese, butter, cream and honey at the market.

“I’m not a city person, but I love Belmopan,” Mr. Guenther said in a mix of English, Plautdietsch and Spanish. “It is quiet, good for selling my production, easy to get in and easy to leave.”

Making Belmopan a hub for agricultural development in Belize’s interior, and a refuge from natural disasters, was a top priority when British colonialists developed plans to build the city after Hurricane Hattie destroyed the old capital, Belize City, in 1961, leaving hundreds dead .

At the time, these were planned cities emerge in various parts of the world, a trend reinforced by the 1960 inauguration of Brazil’s futuristic capital, Brasília. In the disintegrating British empire, especially in Africa, these were also the new capitals DodomainTanzania; Gaborone, in Botswana; And Lilongwe, in Malawi. Designers, like Belmopan, largely had them in mind “garden cities” with plenty of open spaces, parks and pedestrian walkways.

Political tensions shaped the city’s plans. George Price, the architect of Belizean independence, viewed the construction of Belmopan as a way to forge a sense of national identity transcendent ethnic differences. And with Guatemala laying claim to Belize in a territorial dispute that continues to this day, Belize’s colonial rulers chose a location about halfway between Belize City and the Guatemalan border in an effort to settle inland.

Solid concrete government buildings such as the National Assembly are reminiscent of the pyramid-shaped design of a Mayan temple, located on an artificial hill where a breeze could cool the structure. They were designed to be both hurricane resistant and economical, avoiding the need for air conditioning at the time.

At the same time, authorities tried to attract officials to Belmopan by offering them housing, mainly in the form of concrete shells, on streets where people from different economic backgrounds would live.

“Belmopan is a social experiment,” says John Milton Arana, 51, an architect from Belize whose family moved here in 1975. Noting the sidewalks that still connect residential areas to the concrete-laden core of Belmopan, he added: “The pedestrian was the priority of this project. vision.”

Yet Mr Arana said the remarkably slow city can also be disorienting with its roundabouts, ring road and lack of busy commercial areas. “People come to visit and ask me, ‘Where is downtown?’” Mr. Arana said. “I tell them, ‘You just got through it.'”

Not everyone is sold on Belmopan. Tourists tend to neglect the city, preferring to snorkel near remote islands or beautiful Mayan archaeological sites. When Belmopan was inaugurated in 1970, it was predicted that it would quickly grow to a population of 30,000 – a figure it has still not reached more than fifty years later.

Some attribute that slow growth to perpetual budget constraints, which leave Belmopan looking perpetually unfinished. The fortress-like structures where many officials toil are showing their age, adorned with noisy air conditioning units; Airy new buildings like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a gift from the Taiwanese government full of hanging gardens, show how authorities have moved away from Belmopan’s Spartan origins.

Mr Arana, the architect, said deviations from Belmopan’s original designs changed the city for the worse. The dilapidated development outside the central areas, he said, especially where Spanish-speaking migrants from neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala have settled, underscores problems such as substandard housing and untreated sewage.

Opinions about Belmopan are divided among diplomats. Countries such as Panama and Guatemala, along with the self-governing island of Taiwan, have their embassies in Belize City, which has more than double the population of Belmopan. Even after Belize gained full independence in 1981, it took 25 years for the United States to move its embassy to Belmopan.

Michelle Kwan, the United States ambassador to Belize and a decorated Olympic figure skater, said she grew to love Belmopan after moving from Los Angeles. She compared life here to her training days in Lake Arrowhead, a small resort community in California’s San Bernardino Mountains, where she could “really focus on what I needed to do.”

“It’s no different here,” Ms. Kwan said. “This is what we focus on and where we work.”

Others in Belmopan suggest that the city has helped forge a multicultural Belizean identity, incorporating Mayan peoples and newer Latino immigrants, that differs from that of Belize City, better known as a bastion of Kriols, people of African and British descent. descent.

“Belmopan has made our cultural differences less pronounced,” said Kimberly Stuart, 49, an education professor at the University of Belize, whose main campus is in the capital.

Others regret certain aspects of life in Belmopan. While flashy new homes and eye-catching new office buildings are changing the capital’s small-town feel, restaurants and bars are still few in number and often close early.

Some in Belmopan say it’s downright boring, but they like it so much. Raj Karki, 52, a Nepalese immigrant who moved to Belize to work on a hydropower project, loved the laid-back city so much that he decided to stay and open a restaurant serving South Asian cuisine near government buildings.

“You can come to Belmopan from anywhere in the world,” Mr Karki said. “Soon you will be welcomed and they will say: ‘Help us build the future.’”