In the context of growing urban complexity and cross-border interdependence, the City of Ensenada, Baja California—designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2015—offers a compelling example of how cultural identity, citizen participation, and design thinking can begin to shape more inclusive civic systems. This case study is part of the Democratizing Design initiative, a cross-border collaboration between UC San Diego Design Lab, The Design Academy, and CETYS University.

Democratizing Design is a people-centered practice and mindset that makes design more understandable, accessible, and inclusive—shaped through community participation and grounded in values of belonging, equity, and shared power. The broader initiative seeks to embed design as a public sector tool to elevate community well-being, foster economic opportunity, and strengthen the design ecosystem across the San Diego-Tijuana mega region.

Focusing on Ensenada’s civic sector, this case study explores how design-driven innovation—sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit—can enable more responsive and humane public systems. Through interviews with civic leaders and community actors, we trace how ideas around infrastructure, participation, legal frameworks, and aesthetics are shaping the city’s design culture and its future.

Ensenada is a mid-sized coastal city with a vibrant identity shaped by its port, cultural heritage, and growing creative economy. In 2015, it was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, a milestone that elevated civic pride and cultural visibility. This designation also catalyzed a new wave of community-led initiatives that used creativity not just as celebration, but as civic infrastructure.

Despite this momentum, the city continues to face major constraints: overlapping jurisdictional authority, tight budgets, and high staff turnover in local government. These conditions often stall large-scale reform. Yet, within this complexity, design-driven innovation has quietly taken root.

Architecture professionals—many of whom now serve in government roles—bring multidimensional perspectives. One municipal architect, for example, notes her career spans the real estate corridor between San Diego and Ensenada, where urban development is inseparable from cross-border flows of people, goods, and culture. This regional dynamic, she explains, “creates a very strong bond” in areas like tourism and logistics.

A local designer with degrees in humanitarian and sustainable design described Ensenada as both a professional canvas and a personal cause. He launched a participatory urban revitalization effort that evolved into the formal proposal to designate Ensenada as a UNESCO Creative City in 2015. "It was easy to speak well of my city," he shared, citing strong local networks and an intuitive understanding of design language and community identity.

Though Ensenada lacks a formal innovation office, several leaders are internalizing design-like mindsets. A director of municipal infrastructure recalls joining the government to understand why projects often fail. He discovered bureaucratic and legal roadblocks that inhibit even the most urgent public works: “You cannot invest in a park if the land doesn’t have legal certainty.”

But his perspective shifted further when he saw how infrastructure improvements changed not just physical spaces but social dynamics. “When we improve a street, suddenly businesses start painting their facades, people picks up garbage. The environment transforms the behavior.” This unspoken ripple effect mirrors one of the core outcomes of human-centered design: changing systems by focusing on people’s everyday experiences.

Similar reflections came from a government administrator who emphasized that many projects begin with community listening. “It’s not just about building; it’s about understanding what people need, especially those who haven’t been included in the process before.”