“We need to make it tangible and understandable to people, and to explain its direct implications on our everyday lives so they will want to fight it,” he said.

Born through a mix of frustration, satire and savvy, the Corruptour is a free one-hour ride led by young activists hoping to stir a political awakening with five trips per weekend. After a hiatus for the holidays, the tours are to resume next week.

In this industrial city of 1.1 million people, the quirky bit of political tourism is the latest creative attempt to agitate for what Mexicans widely say they sorely need: a less corrupt, more efficient government.

The systematic violence that defined this place as recently as 2012 has declined. The private and public sectors came together to tackle the issue by creating a new state police force, known as Fuerza Civil, which has been recruiting and training more than 4,000 polygraphed, in theory, more trustworthy police officers.

But broad government corruption here, and in Mexico at large, remains a largely untreated illness. Mexicans are enraged over the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 college students (one has been confirmed dead) in the southern state of Guerrero last fall, and the government has been plagued with questions over the purchase of homes by the country’s first lady and finance minister from a company that has won numerous government construction contracts.