Located on the eastern periphery of Mexico City, the municipality of Iztapalapa is the gateway for the entire poor population of the southeast of the country and for the internal migrants displaced from the Central Zone of this great metropolis. Historically, this territory has been the backyard of the city: it used to be the location of garbage dumps and today it is the site of five prisons.
Iztapalapa has a population of two million inhabitants, who live with the characteristic problems of the peripheries of central cities: 43% of the population lives in conditions of moderate and extreme poverty. At the same time, it has great potential: 33% of the population is young, between 15 and 30 years of age, and it is the second largest manufacturing industry in Mexico City.
The UTOPÍAS (Units of Transformation and Organisation for Inclusion and Social Harmony) are a commitment of the municipality to increase the common goods in Iztapalapa through large-scale projects of socio-urban acupuncture that generate places of encounter.
With the Pact for the Future of Humanity, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) pledged to address the roots of inequality by putting access to services and public spaces at the centre. The Iztapalapa UTOPIAs inspire our movement to envision a care-based future that forges new development paradigms and protects the commons and global commons.
In UCLG we place care not only at the centre of our agenda but also as the contribution of our organised movement to the United Nations Future Summit. The Iztapalapa UTOPIAs reinforce and inspire our dream. We have to do it for our common future. For the people, for the planet and for the government.
Learn more about the UTOPIAS in this documentary, produced by: UCLG, Amanda Fléty Martínez, Coordinator of the UCLG Committee on Social Inclusion, Participatory Democracy and Social Inclusion and Pablo Fernández Marmisolle Daguerre, Chief of Staff & Director of Partnerships of UCLG; with the support of the Mayor's Office Iztapalapa.