A City Reimagined: Cultural Tours Revive Caracas Amid Post‑Quake Recovery

By midnight on a spring Saturday, the low‑income San Agustín neighborhood of Caracas transformed into a lively dance floor.

A live band played salsa in the middle of the street, and neighbors watched from doorways, smiling as visitors—mostly from the capital’s wealthier eastern districts—who had earlier taken the cable car over the hillside and stopped at local bars, murals, and food stalls, now danced with residents beneath the open sky.

Such a scene would have seemed unimaginable a decade earlier. For generations, many parts of Caracas were known more by reputation than by personal experience. San Agustín, a neighborhood with a rich artistic heritage and a history of violence, fit this pattern.

Nearly six months after the U.S. capture of former leader Nicolás Maduro, many Venezuelans began to envision change. This emerging sense of possibility coincided with a long‑term decline in violent crime across Caracas, where residents report feeling freer to move through the city than they once did.

The San Agustín tours predate this political shift, and many of the city’s historic boundaries and inequalities remain. Yet, as Venezuelans seek ways to reconnect with their country after years of crisis and migration, places like San Agustín are emerging as unexpected sites of gathering.

Reinaldo Mijares, director of 100% San Agustín, notes that tours help generate local pride.

“In San Agustín, we assume the night as a right,” Mijares explains, describing the organization of that evening’s outing. Similar initiatives are inviting visitors into other traditionally off‑limits areas of Caracas, such as the barrios of Petare and Cota 905.

For decades, Caracas has been split along an “imaginary barrier” between its eastern and western sectors, observes photographer Diego Vallenilla of Chacao. Residents from the western side rarely venture east, and vice versa.

But events like this one suggest that such divides may be weakening.

A complicated calm

María Morado, a Caracas local who previously stayed within the eastern parts of the city, says she now visits San Agustín because she perceives the capital as safer and seeks a more “authentic” view of her hometown.

“Before, you couldn’t walk around with a cellphone in your hand,” she recalls. “Now, you can do that even at night. Insecurity has clearly decreased.”

According to the Venezuelan Observatory on Violence, homicide rates have fallen sharply from their mid‑2010s peak. Official crime statistics have been limited for nearly three decades, leaving groups like this one to supplement official data.

In 2016, Venezuela recorded 28,479 homicides—a rate of 92 per 100,000 people—making it the second‑highest in Latin America. By 2023, the most recent year with available data, the rate had dropped by roughly 70%. However, sociologist Roberto Briceño‑León cautions that this decline should not be interpreted as an unequivocal security success.

Outsiders have long associated the hillside barrio of San Agustín with violence. Recent cultural tours that highlight music and cuisine, however, are revealing a different narrative.

“The decline in crime rates is real,” notes Briceño‑León, “but it has not disappeared entirely. Instead, criminal activity has shifted toward organized, higher‑value offenses—including some linked to state actors.”

The economic collapse that began around 2014 reduced the profitability of street crime. With cash scarce, kidnappings harder to monetize, and millions of Venezuelans emigrating—including many potential perpetrators or victims of violence—the landscape changed.

Police crackdowns also contributed to the drop in street‑level crimes. Security forces, including the now‑defunct FAES special unit, carried out operations that human‑rights groups have linked to extrajudicial killings. Human Rights Watch estimates that between 2016 and 2019, Venezuelan police and security forces were responsible for more than 19,000 deaths, often citing “resistance to authority.”

Vallenilla, a travel photographer, points out the persistence of police checkpoints and abuses that continue to make some citizens feel vulnerable. There is no guarantee that the current calm will endure; an economic rebound and the return of migrants could rekindle criminal interest in a city with renewed cash flow and movement.

Nevertheless, the reduction in street crime offers Caraqueños a chance to step outside self‑imposed bubbles and rediscover their own city.

Reclaiming the night

Andreina Seijas, a researcher specializing in nighttime urbanism, recalls growing up in Caracas during the late 1990s and early 2000s, when darkness felt “forbidden.” As a young woman, she says, night carried warnings; families instituted curfews regardless of neighborhood, shaping a culture in which social life moved indoors—into cars, guarded buildings, and shopping malls—despite the city’s pleasant climate year‑round.

“The night is where young people socialize and have fun. But in Caracas, insecurity interrupted that,” says Dr. Seijas.

In the recent resurgence of public nighttime gatherings, she sees an opportunity to rebuild trust.

Marcy Alejandra Rangel, who recently returned to Caracas after nine years abroad, was surprised to find public life reemerging in places she remembered as night‑time no‑go zones, such as Plaza La Candelaria, where evening activities like exercise classes, dancing, and community gatherings have recently drawn crowds back to the square. Such scenes, she says, make public space feel shared and more secure.

Visitors and residents alike dance in San Agustín during a nighttime cultural tour. These routes have become part of a broader effort to encourage Caraqueños to cross social and geographic boundaries within their own city.

A city still divided

Caracas’ historic divisions have not vanished, despite lower crime rates. According to architect and researcher Teresa García Alcaraz, segregation in the capital is not solely a matter of security or income; it also reflects longstanding patterns of movement through the city.

Much of this stems from the 1989 uprising and subsequent crackdown known as El Caracazo. As poor residents flooded the streets in response to austerity measures, the state responded with lethal force. Class divisions became tied to images of disorder, danger, and social rupture, shaping generations of Caraqueños’ travel habits and the places they avoided.

Cultural tours can challenge these perceptions by providing visitors with firsthand experiences of neighborhoods they might only have known through warnings. However, García Alcaraz cautions against overstating the impact of art and culture: they do not, on their own, erase inequality.

The tours are curated, with scheduled stops, and cost roughly $50–$60—a price that excludes many Venezuelans. Mijares acknowledges that participants tend to have disposable income, yet he emphasizes that the model injects resources into the neighborhood and, crucially, reinforces a positive self‑image among residents. “It sends the message that our barrio has value,” he says.

After years of mass migration, many Venezuelans have had to articulate who they are to the world. This has reframed stereotypes about music and food, effectively “redefining their identity,” Mijares notes. Because of that, he observes, some visitors arrive in San Agustín seeking a neighbourhood experience and leave recognizing a piece of home.

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