Making a Modern Barrio : Infrastructure and Progress in Mexico City,1900-1903

Abstract

This article investigates an urban renewal project in Mexico City that took place between 1900 and 1903 under the leadership of the mayor Guillermo de Landa y Escandón. Unlike the efforts of Mexico’s national government, which focused on the capital’s urban core, this project sought to bring public services, including paved streets and sidewalks, water and sewer lines, and parks to the city’s marginalized periphery. In studying this campaign, thus far overlooked by historians, the article explores the relationship between urban planning, local and national politics, and inequality in Mexico at the turn of the nineteenth century, arguing that the project’s ultimate failure stemmed from both fiscal constraints and political reforms that consolidated power in the capital city under President Porfirio Díaz. It also compares the project to contemporaneous urban renewal schemes elsewhere in the Americas, revealing commonalities between Landa y Escandón’s plans, the North American City Beautiful movement, and projects in South America while highlighting important differences.