scholarly journals A City of Promenades

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-112
Author(s):  
Carolyn Aguilar-Dubose ◽  
Maite García-Vedrenne
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Sports Clubs ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Natural Landscapes ◽  
Neighbourhood Level ◽  
Historic City ◽  
The City

Studying old maps showing the transformation of Mexico City can unveil possible footprints of historic facilities and utilities that have disappeared in the process of urban modernization. The objective of this exercise is to uncover the location of old structures of Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Mexico City as a basis for creating a new footprint of urban memory and identity. A city of promenades proposes the remembrance and use of public space, such as the recuperation of lost cultural and geographic landscapes. It takes the routes and paths, the aqueducts, the roads, the moats, the ramparts, the gates of the historic city and its connections to other villages, which now conform this great metropolitan area and it revives them in order to bring communities together. Inhabitants experience a sense of belonging to a meaningful place, while looking back to the past of a growing city. These paths will serve as initiators of projects and actions which will improve patterns of use and sense of identity, offering landmarks, establishing linear parks as connectors of different scales of existing parks and, through modern design, creating a rediscovered footprint of monuments, landscapes and infrastructures long gone. This proposal is an integral project for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. It begins at the neighbourhood level and forms part of an urban park system; connecting the surrounding natural landscapes and woodlands, the urban parks, sports clubs, neighbourhood parks, squares, bridges, central reservations, sidewalks, tree and flower beds, chapels, rights of way, unused railways, roads, avenues, greenhouses, agricultural trails, cemeteries, brooks and waterways, ravines, canals, terraces, balconies, cloisters and convent patios, archeological sites and unbuilt urban block cores. The city of paths and strolls, of boulevards, of old roads to haciendas and convents, of dikes, gateways, old custom house gates, water fountains and springs, canals, causeways, watermills and aqueducts is an academic exercise with students and teachers to find a meaningful representation of the layers of history that builds a city and creates identity.

scholarly journals CDMX Resilient Code: Water Commons in Mexico City

ZARCH ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Lorena Bello Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Strategic Program ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

Using Mexico City (CDMX) as a paradigmatic example of seriously unbalanced water regimes, our project Resilient Code helps strengthen and communicate CDMX’s government efforts toward risk reduction and water resilience in marginal communities. Our project does so by bridging otherwise separate agents in the government towards a common goal: equitable resilience. Resilient Code provides design solutions that link the social infrastructure of PILARES (a network of 300 vocational schools distributed throughout the city) to CDMX’s environmental and risk reduction initiatives, including their Risk Atlas. This strategic program of design-based solutions began with “water resilience” as a Pilot to repurpose public space throughout underserviced barrios as a network of “water-commons”. Resilient Code helps partners in CDMX implement projects to reduce environmental risks and complement socio-economic programs, fostering growth of the “water-commons”. Resilient Code is socialized through a participatory game-based workshop, and through an online Atlas of Risk Reduction.

History of the Torre Latinoamericana

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Beckhart
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Historic District ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Education And Health ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Construction ◽  
Historic City ◽  
The City

Historians have extensively explored the topic of architecture in Mexico City in the 20th century. From the relationships between politics, public patrons, new construction technologies, and new idioms of modernism, the impressive story of architecture in this megalopolis continues to astound and captivate people’s imaginations. Architecture was a channel that politicians used to address housing, education, and health care needs in a rapidly growing city. Yet scholars have not been especially concerned with private construction projects and their influence on the process of shaping and being shaped by the visual representation of Mexico City. Private building projects reveal an alternative reality of the city—one not envisioned by politicians and public institutions. Private construction projects in the historic city center are particularly interesting due to their location. These buildings are built on ancient clay lakebeds and volcanic soil on which the Aztecs first built the city. Not only are these buildings located in the heart of the city, the buildings in the rest of the historic district are also sinking. Any building in a historic district that has withstood the test of time should be an object of interest to scholars. The Torre Latinoamericana is perhaps the only building in the historic district and the entire city that ceases to sink, and instead floats! Located on the corner of Madero and San Juan de Letrán, the building sits at the heart of history, culture, and ancient Aztec clay lakebeds. The Torre Latinoamericana was built between 1948 and 1956 and is one of the most important visual symbols of resilience and modernity in Mexico City today.

scholarly journals Analysis of Public Space in Historic Districts of Historic Cities Based on Community Governance

CONVERTER ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Fan Ding, Yunying Ren
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Historic Districts ◽  
The Public ◽  
Life Mode ◽  
Historic City ◽  
The City ◽  
Historic Cities

Purpose: Based on the perspective of community governance, the paper explores the research path of public space renewal in historic city districts. Taking the historical public space of Lhasa City as an example, this paper analyzes the causes of the characteristics of public space, analyzes the logical relationship between public space and urban renewal and community governance, and finally optimizes the pattern of historical public space of Lhasa City by improving the spatial structure. Create intelligent living blocks and optimize the life mode of historical blocks; Significance: From the human-oriented perspective, the exploration of the public space renewal in the Historic Districts was in essence a process in which people develop continuously and their needs are continuously satisfied. It could meet the multi-level needs of residents at different stages. Secondly, from a social perspective, the innovative pattern of community governance could help achieve self-satisfaction within the district, radiate to the surrounding industries, and relieve the pressure of social employment. Thirdly, from the perspective of urban renewal implementation, the research on the public space renewal the Historic Districts would help promote the balance of social ecological environment, improve the regional governance and promote the high-quality development of the city.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Andrew Konove
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Shadow Economy ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Urban Public Space ◽  
The City

The introduction outlines the argument and principal contributions of the book. It argues that the Baratillo and the larger shadow economy in Mexico City have been essential to the economic and political life of the city since the late colonial period. The introduction explains how the study contributes to existing scholarship on the informal economy, the state, urban politics, and urban public space in Mexico and Latin America. It includes a discussion of the study’s sources and methods and brief chapter descriptions.

scholarly journals Contribution of garbage burning to chloride and PM<sub>2.5</sub> in Mexico City

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 8751-8761 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Li ◽  
W. Lei ◽  
N. Bei ◽  
L. T. Molina
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Polyvinyl Chloride ◽  
Biomass Burning ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Emission Inventory ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City

Abstract. The contribution of garbage burning (GB) emissions to chloride and PM2.5 in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) has been investigated for the period of 24 to 29 March during the MILAGRO-2006 campaign using the WRF-CHEM model. When the MCMA 2006 official emission inventory without biomass burning is used in the simulations, the WRF-CHEM model significantly underestimates the observed particulate chloride in the urban and the suburban areas. The inclusion of GB emissions substantially improves the simulations of particulate chloride; GB contributes more than 60% of the observation, indicating that it is a major source of particulate chloride in Mexico City. GB yields up to 3 pbb HCl at the ground level in the city, which is mainly caused by the burning of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in the garbage. GB is also an important source of PM2.5, contributing about 3–30% simulated PM2.5 mass on average. More modeling work is needed to evaluate the GB contribution to hazardous air toxics, such as dioxin, which is found to be released at high level from PVC burning in laboratory experiments.

scholarly journals Contribution of garbage burning to chloride and PM<sub>2.5</sub> in Mexico City

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 13667-13689 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Li ◽  
W. Lei ◽  
N. Bei ◽  
L. T. Molina
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Polyvinyl Chloride ◽  
Biomass Burning ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Emission Inventory ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
High Level ◽  
The City

Abstract. The contribution of garbage burning (GB) emissions to chloride and PM2.5 in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) is investigated for the period of 24 to 29 March during the MILAGRO-2006 campaign using the WRF-CHEM model. When the MCMA-2006 official emission inventory without biomass burning is used in the simulations, the WRF-CHEM model significantly underestimates the observed particulate chloride in the urban and the suburban areas. The inclusion of GB emissions substantially improves the simulations of particulate chloride; GB contributes more than 60 % of the observation, indicating it is a major source of particulate chloride in Mexico City. GB yields up to 3 pbb HCl at the ground level in the city, which is mainly caused by the burning of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in the garbage. GB is also an important source of PM2.5, contributing about 3–30 % simulated PM2.5 mass on average. More modeling work is needed to evaluate the GB contribution to hazardous air toxics, such as dioxin, which is found to be released at high level from PVC burning in laboratory experiments.

Slum Neighborhoods in Latin America

1967 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lloyd H. Rogler
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Vacant Lots ◽  
Urban Migrants ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

In the life of Latin American cities the rapid expansion of slum neighborhoods has emerged as a compelling problem. The inability of city authorities to provide adequate and inexpensive housing for rural-to-urban migrants, as well as for those economically poor persons born and raised in the city, has clashed with the tremendous growth of the population and its drive toward urbanization. The impoverished families must settle wherever they can. Scattered throughout Mexico City, for instance, on vacant lots adjoining factories or on the periphery of the metropolitan area are shack homes built of miscellaneous materials, known as jacales, or the rows of single-story concrete, brick, or adobe dwellings called vecindades. Beyond Mexico City, there are the villas miserias of Buenos Aires, the favelas on the rocky promontories of Rio de Janeiro, the barrios clandestinos of Bogotá, the barriadasmarginales of Lima, the ranchos of Caracas, and the callampas (mushrooms) of Santiago.

Mexico City

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra María Leal Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
The State ◽  
Small Island ◽  
World Class ◽  
The City

Numerous urban scholars have been studying Mexico City—the capital of Mexico—since at least the 1970s, drawn to its remarkable growth during the second half of the 20th century and to its specific patterns of urbanization. The city is located at more than 7,000 feet above sea level in the southern section of a large, enclosed basin known as the Valley of Mexico. Its name officially designates what until recently was the Federal District, an area of 550 square miles divided into sixteen administrative jurisdictions and which, until 1997, lacked a democratically elected government. A 2016 reform transformed Mexico City into the country’s thirty-second state. In common usage, the name Mexico City also refers to the greater Mexico City Metropolitan Area, which as of 2010 also included fifty-nine adjacent municipalities in the State of Mexico and one in the State of Hidalgo, with a total extent of nearly 3,100 square miles. According to the 2010 census, Mexico City’s population is around nine million, while the greater Metropolitan Area has more than twenty million inhabitants. The city was founded in 1521 on the ruins of the Aztec capital on a small island in Lake Texcoco and gradually expanded onto the increasingly desiccated lakebed, which has created a particular set of environmental problems, such as constant flooding. Like other major Latin American cities, Mexico City—and later the Metropolitan Area—grew exponentially after the 1940s, as industrialization attracted massive migration. Its population jumped from three million in 1930 to around fifteen million in 1985. Mexico’s most important city, as well as its political, cultural, and economic center, Mexico City is a study in contrasts. It displays wealth and poverty extremes, world-class architecture next to marginal shantytowns, and a vibrant, cosmopolitan cultural life alongside high criminal rates and seemingly intractable environmental problems, which continue to attract the interest of a wide variety of urban scholars. This bibliography is selective rather than exhaustive. It privileges recent English- and Spanish-language scholarship, but also includes key texts that continue to inform the field, as well as recent urban historiography. It is divided into the main topics covered by urban scholars of Mexico City since the 1970s. These range from urban planning, urban politics, informality, poverty, and marginality, which were dominant themes until the 1980s, to urban protest and social movements, gentrification, and environmental, gender, and cultural studies, which have expanded the field more recently. The author wishes to thank Carlos Humberto Arroyo Batista for his research assistance in elaborating this bibliography.

scholarly journals Chemical evolution of volatile organic compounds in the outflow of the Mexico City Metropolitan area

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 24085-24143 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. C. Apel ◽  
L. K. Emmons ◽  
T. Karl ◽  
F. Flocke ◽  
A. J. Hills ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Chemical Evolution ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract. The volatile organic compound (VOC) distribution in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) and its evolution as it is uplifted and transported out of the MCMA basin was studied during the 2006 MILAGRO/MIRAGE-Mex field campaign. The results show that in the morning hours in the city center, the VOC distribution is dominated by non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) but with a substantial contribution from oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs), predominantly from primary emissions. Alkanes account for a large part of the NMHC distribution in terms of mixing ratios. In terms of reactivity, NMHCs also dominate overall, especially in the morning hours. However, in the afternoon, as the boundary layer lifts and air is mixed and aged within the basin, the distribution changes as secondary products are formed. The WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry) model and MOZART (Model for Ozone and Related chemical Tracers) were able to reproduce the general features of the daytime cycle of the VOC OH reactivity distribution showing that NMHCs dominate the distribution except in the afternoon hours and that the VOC OH reactivity peaks in the early morning due to high morning emissions from the city into a shallow boundary layer. The WRF-Chem and MOZART models showed higher reactivity than the experimental data during the nighttime cycle, perhaps indicating problems with the modeled nighttime boundary layer height. In addition, a plume was studied in which air was advected out of the MCMA and intercepted downwind with the DOE G1 on 18~March and the NCAR C130 one day later on 19~March. A number of identical species measured aboard each aircraft gave insight into the chemical evolution of the plume as it aged and was transported as far as 1000 km downwind. Ozone and many OVOCs were photochemically produced in the plume. The WRF-Chem and MOZART models were used to examine the spatial and temporal extent of the 19~March plume and to help interpret the OH reactivity in the downwind plume. The model results generally showed good agreement with experimental results for the total VOC OH reactivity downwind and gave insight into the distributions of VOC chemical classes downwind. A box model with detailed gas phase chemistry (NCAR Master Mechanism), initialized with concentrations observed at one of the ground sites in the MCMA, was used to examine the expected evolution of specific VOCs over a 1–2~day period. The models clearly supported the experimental evidence for NMHC oxidation leading to the formation of OVOCs downwind, which then become the primary fuel for ozone production far away from the MCMA.

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