Ciudad Caribia, about 9 miles from Caracas, was built under the watch of former Venezuela President Hugo Chavez. Chavez had hoped the city would become a model for 21st century Utopian living. Construction began in 2006. The city initially opened its doors to over 1,000 residents and planned to eventually welcome thousands more. But they never materialized. Today, less than 2,000 of Ciudad Caribia's 20,000 apartments have been built. And it's struggled to serve even its small population.

        Before Chavez's death, residents complained of long waits for promised apartments, forcing as many as 11 people to live in the same unit, according to this 2012 BBC report. In the same report, residents are seen waiting as long as an hour for state-provided vans to pick them up to take them into the capital. More recently, people have waited more than three hours just to get into the local grocery store. A local bakery closed for a full year with no given reason.

         The idea for developing a new city was developed by President Hugo Chávez in 2006, with the site chosen by Chávez following a malfunction that forced the helicopter he was traveling in to land in the area. It was named after the native Carib people. The city is planned to have 20,000 residential units. Several dwellings were given to Venezuelan citizens made homeless by flooding in November 2010.

        It was called a "socialist city". In this city, people can get most of the things for free or subsidized. Ciudad Caribia was one of the few places in Venezuela where support for the post-Chavez socialist government remained strong. Despite economic crises and anti-government protests that rocked Venezuela during the 2010s, residents of this socialist city maintained unshaken faith in President Chavez's Bolivarian revolution. The delivery represents part of Mission Housing Venezuela, a social program launched earlier this year with the explicit goal of eliminating the Caribbean nation’s housing deficit, estimated at 1.5 million. “Only with a socialist government would this be possible”, Chavez affirmed.

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