Inside Central America’s Most Exclusive Neighborhood

Even though it looks like it’s been here for centuries, this beautiful and vibrant city you see behind me is actually one of the newest urban developments in Central America and its construction started just 12 years ago.

It’s one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Guatemala, and it’s called Cayalá. I came down here to explore this architectural marvel and discover why Cayalá is also one of the most controversial construction projects in this Central American nation. I inadvertently came across a fascinating story that involves intrigue, corruption, elitism and some of the most masterful urban planning I’ve ever seen!

Is this a model to copy and replicate across the world? Or is it the crown jewel of inequality as detractors make it out to be? The answer will surprise you. Let’s figure this out together. I’m Ricky, and this is Two Bit da Vinci.

(Image source)

Chapter I: Paseo Cayalá

I recently learned that of all places, Guatemala had just built a gorgeous new town that is the envy of many European cities, right in the heart of the buzzing, dangerous, and polluted capital, Guatemala City.

When I first saw pictures of this place I couldn’t believe it… I just had to come and check it out, so here I am. It really looks as if this utopia, perched on this hill overlooking the capital, had always been here, just like its architects, engineers, marketers, and supporters are keen on repeating.

It’s no joke!

I just got here from downtown and as I walk through the streets of Cayalá, I feel like I’m in a completely different world:

• The architecture is stunning, mixing classical and colonial elements with modern touches and perfect finishes.
• We’re talking about an award-winning urban desigh that combines everything a great, liveable, walkable city should have, with a uniquely traditional design.
• In 2013, architect Richard M. Economakis won the Palladio Award for New Design & Construction for designing this building you see behind me (source):

• It’s Cayala’s City Hall and it combines elements of the Popol Vuh like the capitals with maize motifs on its columns, and a staircase inspired by a Mayan pyramid.

But the Civic Hall, officially called “Azaria de Cayalá” is just the beginning.

• The buildings are mostly white, with colorful accents and details.
• The streets are clean, safe, and well-lit.
• People are just walking around chilling, there are no cars, no noisy Banda music mixed with the yells and shouts of a million people.
• I’ve come across fountains, sculptures (one of them is the biggest carved sculpture in all of Guatemala), gardens… you name it.
• Not only that, but the atmosphere is lively, with people of all ages and backgrounds enjoying themselves and the many amenities and activities that Cayalá offers.
• Compared to the busy, noisy metropolis of 1 Million residents that surrounds it, this town, or rather, neighborhood, really is the utopic Paradise on Earth its name, “Cayalá” roughly translates to from the Mayan dialect Kaqchikel.

But, being an engineer and this being Two Bit da Vinci, I wanted to go deeper than what initially meets the eye.

Let’s look at Cayalá in numbers:

• Ciudad Cayalá, or Cayalá City is built on a plot of land of 870 acres (352 hectares).
• Most of this land is a lush green forest on the slopes of a hill. That’s pretty much the size of Central Park in New York.
• Less than 10% of that land is currently developed, with 8 separate districts already finished. The largest and most popular is Paseo Cayalá which is 60 acres (24.3 hectares), but there are also the:
  • Distrito de Moda or Fashin District
  • Cardales de Cayalá
  • Cayibel
  • Plaza Nogale
  • Décimo
  • Distrito Empresarial or Business District, and
  • Plaza Cayalá
• Overall, Cayalá is home to almost 2000 families, and according to some, about 350 stores, but we went through the entire official directory, one by one and found that there are actually closer to 206 registered shops and some 40 currently rented office spaces.
• Over half of these businesses are in Paseo Cayalá.
• There is a LOT to eat here. We counted about 70, restaurants, 70! including anything from McDonalds and Taco Bell to higher-end gourmet options.
• They’ve got everything here, from a university campus to a Marriott Bonvoy Hotel, and a brand new US Embassy. That’s right, the US built a new Embassy right here in Cayalá. We’ll get back to why in just a moment.

Seriously, guys, I can’t begin to tell you just how shocking the contrast is from the rest of the country I’ve seen so far.

Chapter 2: Designing “Paradise”

I immediately started wondering, How did Guatemalans pull this off? You know? I mean Guatemala isn’t famous for its amazing urban development. It’s much more famous for its high crime rate, particularly here in Guatemala City.

But you don’t see any of that here. Cayalá feels like a safe haven, yet it’s not designed as a closed-off, gated community.

So my next questions were, Who built it? And Why? But most importantly, how did anyone get their hands on such a large and valuable swath of real estate in the heart of the country’s capital in the first place?

The answer to that last question was quite a puzzle to crack, but we’ll get back to that in a moment since it marks the beginning of a series of shady facts about Cayalá that the developers don’t want you to know.

Anyway, the natural place to start looking for information was, for me, Cayalá’s official website Cayala.com!

So, what did I find after reading the entire website?

• The first thing I took note of was that Cayalá is being built and developed by Grupo Cayalá, a premium real estate development company owned and operated by one of Guatemala’s wealthiest and most powerful families, the Leals.
• I also found out that Grupo Cayalá hired Estudio Urbano, an architecture firm led by Pedro Pablo Godoy and María Fernanda Sánchez, a couple of very talented architects who went to Notre Dame and specialized in traditional construction design.
• They teamed up with Economakis from South Bend (the guy who won the award I just mentioned), and got one of the best urban planners in the world on board, architect Léon Krier from Luxembourg, who specializes in New Classical architecture and New Urbanism.
• Krier is best known for his master plan for Poundbury, an urban extension to Dorchester, UK for Prince Charles; and for several buildings, such as the Krier House in Seaside, Florida; and the Village Hall in Windsor, Florida.
• I found that Krier was the key to Cayalá’s success. He was responsible for laying out Paseo Cayalá, the most important quarter of the entire development.
• He must have been like a kid in a candy store when the developers came up to him explaining their vision of low-rise buildings in traditional architectural style, open public spaces for all to enjoy, virtually no cars, everything is walkable, and everyone is safe!
• He must have been all hands on deck!
• And yes! He also won an award for it!
  • The 2021 CNU Charter Award in the Neighborhood, District, and Corridor category for their master plan of Paseo Cayalá along with Estudio Urbano.
• After strolling around Guatemala City for a while and then coming here to Cayalá, something caught my attention right away:
  • Almost all middle and high-class neighborhoods I saw along the way in the city were gated.
  • It’s a rising trend all over the world, that well-off neighbors come together and close off previously public roads to protect themselves from crime.
  • It’s such a trend, in fact, that I found scholarly articles studying the phenomenon, saying that gated communities in Guatemala have exploded since the 90s (source).
• But Cayalá, surprisingly, isn’t a gated community (at least not in the normal sense).
• Apart from its beauty, this is probably the single most important feature Cayalá offers Guatemalans: the chance to roam freely through its cobblestone streets, visit its shops, and admire the clean white buildings.

But things took a dark turn somewhere, because Krier resigned as Master Planner in 2017 after completing Paseo Cayalá, leaving the rest of the project in the hands of Estudio Urbano.

• If you’re like me, you’re thinking: This can’t be a good sign! Why did Krier resign?
• That’s exactly what was going through my head as I read about it. All of a sudden, I started feeling a sense of.. unease that I couldn’t explain.
• It’s sort of like in those suspense movies when everything is perfect, and everyone’s super friendly and happy and you start feeling like it’s a couple of shades too perfect, and people aren’t just nice, they’re too nice… and you suddenly realize something’s must be wrong.

That’s the feeling I got. And when that feeling got hold of me I just couldn’t let it go.

It completely changed my perspective and made it easier to look past the vale of beauty and well-thought-out design. A bit more research changed it even more.

Chapter III: A Mountain of Controversy

It’s the 1910s, and a proud-looking, well-groomed man wearing a suit and donning an elegant fedora hat walks on his oxford shoes into the presidential dispatch.

As soon as she spots him, the secretary presses the intercom that connects her to the main office next door.

Someone picks up on the other side and she says: Mr. President, your 4 o’clock appointment is here.

A coarse voice answers and, without delay, she walks toward the large wooden door and opens it to let the man in.

He politely nods to her as he walks in and finds himself face to face with the famous Guatemalan Dictator, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, who greets him with a hug saying:

— It’s done, my good friend! The lands are yours as we agreed. So, can I count on your support?

Without a word, the man offers a hand and seals the deal with a shake.

Later that afternoon, The head of the Leal family invites all his relatives for a special dinner. After dessert, he chimes a glass of wine, ready to make an announcement:

— My dears– he says–For years we’ve worked the land and benefited from sugar cane and rum here at Ingenio Magdalena. But starting today, our business changes. I’ve just acquired a plot of land that will bring more wealth to our family than 10 new Magdalenas when the time comes.

• This is how most detractors of Cayalá City will tell you the Leal family got hold of the hundreds of acres of the capital’s Zone 16.
• Turns out that not everyone is happy with this project, and both Grupo Cayalá and the Leal family have been involved in all sorts of scandals.
• While the previous story itself is completely made up, it may hold some ounces of truth. I’ve read from some sources that the Leal family has owned that large plot of land for over 100 years. Some say as far back as 1913 (source).

I thought to myself: powerful families like the Leals don’t leave things to chance. They’re always somehow related to politics, it’s just a matter of finding out how.

In the case of the Leals, it wasn’t really that difficult to find out.

• I looked up who was president in Guatemala during the second decade of the 20th century and was surprised to find that it was a dictator called Estrada Cabrera.
• He was infamous for giving out generous concessions to the United Fruit Company that basically built the banana industry by exploiting the region.
• Also, like all dictators, he was famous for rigging elections, human rights violations, and being pretty generous with gifts to his backers. Some suggest he could have helped the Leals into that piece of land.

This could just be a coincidence and nothing more, but that was just the beginning. I found several political scandals related to the Leal family.

• For example, Rosa Leal de Pérez is the wife of former president Otto Pérez Molina, serving as first lady of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015.
• While there are no direct accusations of using her office to benefit her family’s many businesses, I did find there are some indirect links and controversies.
• For example, her husband’s government allegedly granted tax exemptions to Grupo Cayalá when building Paseo Cayalá.
• President Otto Perez Molina resigned from office in 2015 after another corruption scandal that ultimately landed him a 16-year sentence in prison in 2022 (source).

Another family member, Mario Leal Castillo is even worse.

• He’s a politician and businessman who was involved in the Cayalá project and was also involved in several corruption scandals before fleeing the country.
• And then we have Engineer Héctor Leal, CEO of Grupor Cayalá and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Ingenio Magdalena, one of Guatemala’s largest sugar producers. Ingenio Magdalena was recently sued by the state for redirecting a river to benefit the sugar mills’ production (source).
• Hector is also the president and one of the founding members of FUNCAGUA, the Guatemalan Water Fund for the Conservation of Water Resources which some academics coined as hypocritical and pursuing nothing more than to control water resources in the future.

So, there’s no shortage of controversy around Grupo Cayalá and its members.

It’s clear to me that the Leals are probably just like any other wealthy family: always thinking of how to make another dollar, leading them to finally develop the lands of Cayalá.

Chapter IV: Things Aren’t What They Seem

If you look at any of Cayalá’s brochures, you’ll realize that its marketing relies heavily on premium housing, and a sense of openness and security.Cayalá is sold as a place where people of all classes and backgrounds come to meet and enjoy Cayala’s spaces together.

I’ve found that to be true.

But from there to saying that Cayalá is a city for “Everyone” I think is total BS. You can see and feel the upper-class quality construction and that’s not cheap.

Let’s face it: it’s a place for the rich to live, and for the less fortunate to visit.

That’s not a bad thing, in my opinion. I think it’s great that they have a safe place to just walk around and talk, but these people ultimately have to go back home at the end of the day.

I can’t shake the feeling of Cayalá as a new open-concept street mall.

It’s like, instead of living in one place and building a mall in another place to set up your shop where your clients are, you build the mall around your home and make it pretty so people come to you instead.

I think it’s genius, but it also tends to deepen the divide between the rich and the poor even more.

• The average Guatemalan family doesn’t stand a chance of moving to Cayalá.
• The first phase of the Paseo project had 110 apartments, with sales prices ranging from $260,000 to $800,000. (source)
• The ones at the lower end are tiny single-bedroom apartments not fit for families.
• I also looked at some listings in Cayalá and found villas selling for $3 million or more!

• And if you thought they could rent, think again.
• Rent Prices go from $900/mo for a midrange single-bedroom unit to almost $10,000 and more for a larger 3 or 4-bedroom apartment (source).
• Yet the average salary in Guatemala is around $1,300 (source).
• In one of the countries with the highest inequality and where over 55% of its 18 million people live below the poverty line, it’s very easy to see how these places are out of reach for most and cater only to Guatemala’s business elites or foreigners like US Embassy employees.

Chapter V: Things take a turn for the worse

Cayalá is a paradise that seems almost like the ideal city. That is, until you get a reality check and realize you’re standing on private property!

It’s easy to lose track of that little detail, but it’s always there.

Cayalá isn’t a city, it’s a private neighborhood.

I thought long and hard. What does this imply? What makes it different from a normal town?

Well… a lot!

Being private means landowners can decide who they let in and who they don’t. If they decide to kick you out, you can’t do a thing about it!

They proved it pretty convincingly last year when protesters supporting Guatemala’s president-elect were barred from coming into Cayalá by security guards with guns (source).

To top it off, being private property means the police can’t go into Cayalá without a search warrant under Guatemalan law. That can seriously delay response times in case of an emergency.

I also found that there’s A LOT of hidden security around the city. In normal gated communities, you’d see security details like guys with machine guns. Here, they’re more like special agents with concealed weapons.

There are also over 1,400 security cameras spread across public spaces monitored 24-7 (source).

Also, Cayalá isn’t today as open as it was originally. Cayalá’s residents got together and democratically voted for gating,” which was a total let for Krier.

The magic blow came when the developers asked to build high-rise buildings to make even more money instead of the city’s original plan of no more than 3 stories high.

That was too much for Krier and he quit as master planner, stating:

“Skyscraping is, I think, an immoral act.”

Estudio Urbano didn’t care one bit and went ahead and designed the new expansions with 5 to 9-story buildings, and one particular development is a high-rise, 20-story residential building with four penthouses called ALTEZZA DE CAYALÁ.

(source)

Just imagine how immoral this building would be in the eyes of its original designer.