Urban plan brings life to rundown area of Guatemala City

Guatemala’s capital is a bleak and violent place, where the wealthy hide behind barbed wire and concrete walls.

But an unlikely urban redevelopment project is thriving for dozens of businesses in a five-block section of the Zone One downtown neighborhood.

A nonprofit, city-run redevelopment corporation known as Urbanistica has spent more than $5 million since 2004 to close streets to traffic, light them brightly and monitor them with closed-circuit video cameras and extra police officers.



Source: Associated Press