Mexico City’s public care system and Mayor Clara Brugada’s community center initiative won praise from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during the 2026 Urban 20 Mayors Summit (U20), an annual gathering of mayors from major G20 cities and other metropolises around the world.
Speaking alongside Brugada in New York on Sunday, Mamdani said that Mexico City is a city “that many of us look to for inspiration, especially in how we answer the crisis of care in our economies.”
Gracias, @NYCMayor, por reconocer las #UTOPÍAS de la Ciudad de México como un proyecto para garantizar una vida plena. Una visión de ciudad que pone a las personas y a las comunidades al centro.
¡Es un gusto que este proyecto sea inspirador en las grandes ciudades del mundo! pic.twitter.com/gvZzhVLnF2
— Clara Brugada Molina (@ClaraBrugadaM) September 20, 2026
“When we’re talking about care blocks, we talk about these often within our own administration as an example of what it can look like to deliver for people in our own city,” he said.
Under Brugada’s leadership, the Mexico City government has set up a public care system, a central part of which is the provision of free childcare as well as services aimed at the well-being of seniors and people with disabilities.
Among the government-run centers that offer these services are Unidades de Transformación y Organización para la Inclusión y la Armonía Social (Units of Transformation and Organization for Inclusion and Social Harmony), known as Utopías. These community centers — which also offer cheap meals and a range of recreational, cultural, social and educational facilities — first opened in Iztapalapa when Bruagada was mayor of that Mexico City borough (2018-23) and are now being expanded to other parts of the capital as the city government seeks to offer greater support to primary caregivers, including working mothers.
Brugada is aiming to open 100 new Utopías during her 2024-30 mayorship, while solidifying caregiving as a “public responsibility” rather than a private one.
Mamdani said that “when we talk about Utopías, [there is] the understanding also that we have to be delivering dignity to working people … to ensure they can live lives that are full, lives that are flourishing.”
“And it is such a pleasure to have a fellow mayor here as we do with the mayors of Freetown and Rome who understand that the issues of the working class must be issues at the forefront of our politics,” he said. “And one day I will return to Mexico City, but I don’t know when that is.”
In separate remarks on Sunday, Mamdani said he would like to work with President Claudia Sheinbaum and “any other leaders from across Mexico” to address “global crises.”
“… The crises we face are global crises and that is true for Mexico City, for Rome, for Freetown, for New York City and so many others. And we’ve also watched in admiration of President Sheinbaum’s initiatives and the ways in which she is tackling the same issues of cost of living,” the mayor said.
Brugada draws inspiration from NYC
While Mamdani looks to Mexico City for inspiration, Brugada was herself inspired by New York, a city she said she visited as a young “social activist” in 1987.
In a social media post, the mayor noted that on Monday, she met with Mamdani and “repartidores paisanos” — i.e. Mexicans who work in the Big Apple as deliverymen and deliverywomen for companies such as Uber Eats and DoorDash.
“In Mexico City we will replicate some of New York’s good practices to support those who work in this activity,” Brugada wrote.
She said her government will create “spaces where [repartidores] can rest, recharge their bikes and access bathrooms.”
“We take care of our workers here and there!” Brugada wrote.
En #NuevaYork me reuní con el alcalde @NYCMayor y con repartidores paisanos. Replicaremos en la Ciudad de México algunas de las buenas prácticas de Nueva York para apoyar a quienes se dedican a esta actividad. Como espacios donde puedan descansar, recargar sus bicis y acceso a… pic.twitter.com/NBd5HeccBm
— Clara Brugada Molina (@ClaraBrugadaM) September 21, 2026
On Monday morning, the mayor used the New York City Subway to get to her meeting with Mamdani.
“Hello. We’re going on the subway to City Hall where the Mayor Mamdani awaits us,” she said in a video message.
Above the video, Brugada wrote: “On the way to a meeting with the Mayor of New York. We’re continuing the exchange of ideas and experiences about the future of our cities. As in our beloved #CapitalDeLaTransformación [i.e. Mexico City] public transport is what connects and integrates major metropolises … and here we go.”
Brugada: ‘No (affordable) housing, no peace’
During an address at a U20 forum on affordable housing on Sunday, Brugada said that Mexico City would, “of course,” join a global “affordable housing coalition” proposed by Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni.
“I know that many cities present here will [also] join,” she said.
In a video posted to social media, Brugada said that Collboni had made a “very good proposal to build a coalition of cities in favor of affordable housing.”
In the same video, the mayor of Barcelona — a city with serious tourism-related housing problems — said that Mexico City is among the first cities to join “the defense of a fundamental right, as is the right to decent and affordable housing for everyone.”
“This is a fight that all the big cities of the world are in, and I’m very happy that Mexico City together with New York and Toronto … have joined the initiative in order to do big things,” Collboni said.
In her forum address on Sunday, Brugada declared that without affordable housing, there is “no peace,” and spoke about her government’s housing initiatives and the progress made during her mayorship and that of Sheinbaum, who governed Mexico City from December 2018 to June 2023.
Mexico City’s mayor unveils housing program to reduce impacts of gentrification
“Between 2018 and 2025, nearly half a million people were lifted out of housing poverty in Mexico City. Despite these results, significant challenges remain. As in other cities around the world, the city continues to face a housing shortage, as well as gentrification and the displacement of communities due to speculative dynamics in the real estate market,” she said.
“To address this situation, in Mexico City we have developed the largest housing policy in our history — and one of the policies of greatest reach at an international level as well,” Brugada said.
“The three pillars of this housing policy are firstly, the large-scale construction of social housing; secondly, regulation of the real estate market; and thirdly, we carry this out in partnership with the people through a model of co-management,” she said.
“… We have the goal of building 200,000 … [affordable] homes by 2030,” the mayor said.
“I’m talking about new homes and improved homes. … This means unprecedented progress in reducing the housing shortage,” Brugada said.
Mexico News Daily
