Reinventing Guayaquil: once just a seedy seaport on the way to the Galapagos, Ecuador's largest city has come into its own with a complete makeover.

• Author: Wyels, Joyce Gregory

"Guayaquil is not for the meek," declares a 1990s travel guide. Other guidebooks from that era warn visitors, "Go with friends" and "Be alert for pickpockets." One book, published in 1991, blithely assures readers that there are neither tourist attractions nor tourists in Guayaquil.

Then, as now, Guayaquil served as the jumping-off point for the Galapagos Islands. But visitors typically lingered in this mainland city just long enough to board a flight to the archipelago, seldom straying beyond Guayaquil's airport or the safety of their hotel.

Clearly, Guayaquil was ripe for a makeover. As the year 2000 approached, city officials launched an ambitious urban renewal effort that would clean up blighted neighborhoods, add tourist attractions, modernize the airport, strengthen security, and in the end transform Guayaquil from a gritty seaport to a modern, attractive metropolis.

Nor did Guayaquil undergo a mere cosmetic facelift. Apart from spruced-up parks and new tourist attractions, the entire infrastructure--streets, sidewalks, tunnels, sewer system--faced an overhaul. Power and telephone lines disappeared underground. Plans were laid to replace haphazard transportation arrangements with a new rapid transit system; last year Metrovia's first buses started rolling.

Guayaquil's dramatic turnaround has earned plaudits from recent visitors, international organizations, and--perhaps more importantly--from its own citizens. "Guayaquil used to be like a big country town, because we didn't have any services," says longtime resident Veronica Sanchez. "Now it's a real city."

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Especially noteworthy is the innovative manner in which the citizens were invited to participate in the revitalization of their city. Both businesses and individuals were offered the opportunity to designate a public project as the place to funnel 25 percent of their taxes.

One venture financed in this way is the showcase Malecon 2000, also known as Malecon Simon Bolivar, the boardwalk that parallels the Guayas River. "They used to call it a den of thieves, because of inadequate lighting and insufficient policing," says another resident, Kerly Cornejo. Now it's a pleasant walkway some two miles long that invites strolling, dining, and browsing along the river. Restaurants and shops are interspersed with gardens, monuments, public art, and play areas, and anchored by a theater complex adjacent to a worldclass museum.

Joseph Garzozi, the city's director of tourism, estimates that 95 percent of the pedestrians sauntering the Malecon are local, 5 percent visitors. Watching parents pushing their toddlers on playground swings and devotees of tai chi practicing on the broad deck adjoining the museum, it's easy to see that locals feel a sense of ownership toward their boardwalk. "People who live in the city enjoy the city," says an enthusiastic Garzozi.

Generally acknowledged as the driving force behind the massive revitalization is Guayaquil Mayor Jaime Nebot, whose hands-on approach to addressing urban problems leaves him little time to attend ceremonies in his honor. When the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy presented its Sustainable Transport Award to Guayaquil at a ceremony in Washington, DC, Nebot accepted via video. According to Walter Hook, the organization's executive director, Nebot "belongs to a new generation of bold mayors ... who are tackling seemingly intractable problems like traffic gridlock and air pollution--and winning."

Even before Nebot first took office in 2000, the previous administration of Ecuadorian President Leon Febres Cordero had set the wheels in motion to upgrade both the image and the reality of Guayaquil. For a glimpse of...