Chavez’s Utopian City

A man sits next to a mural depecting the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in downtown Caracas. Slowly and chaotically over the years that followed, the late president's pet project - conceived a decade into his rule and named "Ciudad Caribia" for the country's indigenous Carib people - began to take shape on the mountain 10 km (6 miles) northwest of the capital, Caracas.

A building bearing a design of the signature of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seen in Caracas. Rumbo is among the first 1,600 families, almost all refugees from floods and mudslides around Caracas, to have been given homes in new apartment blocks covered in Chavez imagery. Eventually, Caribia is intended to house 20,000 families, although critics complain at the slow pace of construction, the collapse of some shoddily-built walls and the lack of transparency over huge sums invested.

An aerial view shows the construction site of Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas. Caribia is a hotbed of pro-Socialist Party government sentiment in a country that otherwise was deeply divided in electing charismatic Chavez's handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro as president in April.

A student carrying a backpack bearing the image of national independence hero Simon Bolivar walks as they leave the school in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas. After Chavez's death from cancer in March at the age of 58, the popularity of "El Comandante" has grown and taken on even deeper religious undertones among the support base that kept him in power for 14 years.

A boy rides a bicycle among apartment buildings in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas. While that helped Maduro, a former bus driver, union activist and member of parliament win a six-year term as president, it is also making it near-impossible for him to step out of Chavez's shadow.

A woman stands at a window of a building bearing a design of the signature of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas. He owes everything, from his political inheritance to his election, to his late mentor. So, unsurprisingly, he parrots Chavez at every turn, be it thundering at the U.S. "empire" or trying to prove himself a man of the people during his daily, televised walkabouts.

A mural of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seen in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas. Yet to solve a daunting array of problems, from the highest inflation in the Americas and embarrassing shortages of basic goods to rampant corruption and shoddy infrastructure, many feel Maduro needs to become his own man and tweak some policies.

A building bearing a design with the signature of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seen in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.

A woman feeds her baby as she sells ice cream outside her apartment in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.

A man walks down an stairway in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.

¨A woman looks out of the window, a floor above a window bearing a poster of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.

Women work at a bakery as a banner of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seen in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.

A woman stands outside her apartment next to a portrait of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Ciudad Caribia outside Caracas.