Valencia

Venezuela's industrial capital sits beside Lake Valencia—a closed-basin lake with no ocean outlet that has been slowly poisoned by industrial effluent from the factories that made the city rich. The lake's ecological collapse mirrors the economy that caused it: both systems are in decline, and neither has an exit.

Founded in 1555, Valencia became Venezuela's capital twice (briefly in 1812 and 1830) before Caracas consolidated power permanently. The city's location in the Aragua-Carabobo valley corridor—Venezuela's most fertile agricultural zone—made it a natural industrial center when import-substitution policies in the 1960s and 1970s directed factory investment inland from the capital.

Valencia became Venezuela's Detroit: automotive assembly (Ford, GM, Toyota all operated plants), food processing, petrochemical derivatives, and consumer goods manufacturing concentrated along the Valencia-Maracay industrial corridor. At peak, the Carabobo state produced roughly 40% of Venezuela's non-oil industrial output.

The Bolivarian revolution under Hugo Chávez (from 1999) and the subsequent economic collapse devastated Valencia's industrial base. Price controls, currency manipulation, expropriation threats, and the implosion of PDVSA oil revenues destroyed the purchasing power that had sustained domestic manufacturing. Factories closed or operated at minimal capacity. The Ford and GM plants shut down. Skilled workers emigrated to Colombia, Chile, and Spain.

Valencia's population has declined as the Venezuelan diaspora accelerated—an estimated 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, and Valencia's industrial workforce was disproportionately represented.

Lake Valencia continues to rise (paradoxically, as industrial water use drops) and flood surrounding areas, while its water quality remains among the worst in Latin America.

Valencia's story is what happens when a government treats its industrial base as a political target rather than an asset to steward.