Long gone are the days when Guadalajara’s moniker as “The City of the Roses” had even a modicum of validity.
Finding swaths of roses blooming nowadays in the metropolitan area is a hard ask – even guide books are dropping this once-proud label.
Ambitious Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro wants that to change.
On a visit to sister city Portland, Oregon this week, Alfaro toured the city’s acclaimed International Rose Test Garden and promptly announced plans to install a similar attraction in Guadalajara.
In the company of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Alfaro said the new garden would be “a symbol of brotherhood between both cities.”
Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Portland’s Rose Garden is set among 4.5 acres in the city’s Washington Park. It houses more than 7,000 rose plants of approximately 550 varieties.
New rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance and other attributes. It is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the United States.
Alfaro tweeted that there would be a “public consultation” about the location of the new rose garden in Guadalajara.
Alfaro also visited Portland’s Pearl District, a former run-down industrial zone that has undergone significant urban renewal since the mid-1980 and now boasts art galleries, upscale businesses, cafes, pubs and residences.
“This is an example of urban transformation that can help us in Guadalajara,” Alfaro tweeted. “A short time ago there was nothing here, just poverty and abandonment. Look at it now. In a few years, this is how we will be seeing zones in the center and south of Guadalajara.”
In another tweet, Alfaro lauded Portland’s tram network, which he said could serve as a model for a similar public transport system planned for the Avenida Mariano Otero corridor.
The mayor continued to tweet comparisons between the two cities during his short visit.
In a barely disguised justification for his polemic “Arte Publica” program, he posted images of some of Portland’s public sculptures, noting, “Here, the government is working so the street can also be a museum.”
Uploading another image of a graffiti-laden building, Alfaro wrote: “Here, there are also potholes, flooding, graffiti and poverty. But above all there is a vision for the future and pride in their city.”
The mayor also announced that the Loba (Guadalajara) and Labrewatory (Portland) breweries will shortly be producing a joint artisan beer, using fruits from Guadalajara (prickly pear and guayaba) and salt from Portland.