The Government of Baja California and its partners this month showcased their first sustainable city on the United Nations Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.
Valle San Pedro will be Mexico’s first sustainable city designed to encourage economic activity and innovation and will be the largest such site in the Americas. It is planned to house one million residents in the next twenty years and the first official tenants will move into their new homes this December.
Speaking at the event, the Mexican Vice-Minister for Housing, Sara Topelson said the hardest part of the project had been to finalise the cooperation of the eighteen different agencies involved, including no less than four ministries.
Ms Topelson also emphasised that they held a sense of community in high importance and planned to work with the new residents as the city grew.
The relationship between developers and residents “is basic for a successful neighbourhood and a successful city”, she said. “Networks sustain any development that wants to have a long life”.
Cuauctemoc Perez, President and CEO of Urbi Desarrollos Urbanos, the government's primary construction partner, said that they were also learning from China’s experience of migration, in creating a stable city that attracted investment. He hopes that the city will provide opportunities that will dissuade more Mexicans from undertaking the dangerous journey to the United States in search of jobs.
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