El Ángel de la Independencia, Paseo de la Reforma. Credits: Franck Giraud Franck Credits: de la Reforma. Paseo Independencia, de la Ángel El 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On behalf of the Governing the Large Metropolis Mariana Sánchez of El Programa Universitario 2018 – 2020 cohort, we would like to thank the de Estudios sobre la Ciudad (PUEC); Mayor many people who made this trip possible. We Néstor Núñez López of the Cuhtémoc wish to express our appreciation for the wonder- Delegación; Arnoldo Kramer, and his insight ful administrative team at the Sciences Po Urban on 100 Resilient Cities; Rodrigo Alonzo, the School, Pauline Emile-Geay, Cristina Reyes Director of Projects for the Interurban Train Garcia, and Sandrine Boisard whose coordina- Mexico – Toluca project, and the engineers who tion and planning assured this trip ran smoothly, provided on-site explanations; Dr. Armando but who also provided us with insight and rec- Rosales García, the Undersecretary of Urban ommendations in Mexico City. We wish to Development and Housing at SEDATU; thank Brigitte Fouilland, Patrick Le Galès and Architect Alejandro Garcia Lara of the Instituto Tommaso Vitale for helping to equip us with the Tecnológico de Monterrey; Juan Carlos Zetalla theoretical framework for this trip starting on and Jorge Macias of the World Resources day 1 of GLM, not to mention their energy and Institute; Jean-Baptiste Sabatié, Director of the inquisitiveness in Mexico City. Notably, the edi- Agence Française de Développement; Louise torial team would like to extend our gratitude to David, the General Director of the Alianza Tommaso for his continued assistance with this para la Regeneración Urbana (ARU); Gabriela Study Trip Report. Hernández, the project coordinator for Casa Tochan and the many residents who shared their We would like to warmly thank the many stories; Huerto Roma Verde for welcoming us researchers, professionals, and GLM alumni into their community space; Andrés Lajous, the who shared their experiences of this city. We Secretario de Movilidad de la Ciudad de México appreciate the warm welcome we received (SEMOVI); Luis Fernandez, Executive Director from Professor Vicente Ugalde Saldaña, of NOSOTROX; Daniel Escotto, the director of the Secretario Académico de El Colegio de Agencia de Movilidad y Arquitectura; Régina México (Colmex); Professor Verónica Crossa, Diaz Salgado, for having organized the meet- the Coordinadora Académica de la Maestría ing with the Deputy-Mayors of the Delegación en Estudios Urbanos (Colmex); Professor Cuhtémoc; Verónica Maria Correa Giraldo, Jaime Sobrino (Colmex), Head of the Centro founder of Systema BiBa; Guillermo Ávila; de Estudios de Demográficos, Urbanos y Oliverio Orozco; Julie-Anne Boudreau for Ambientales (CEDUA); Dr. Araceli Damián, her guidance through the Roma neighborhood; Lecturer at CEDUA and General Director of the Marisol Romero for the tour of Xochimilco; and CDMX Social Development Evaluation Council; Côme Salvaire, for assisting in debriefings and and the Colmex PhD students who offered their sharing his knowledge and appreciation for the perspectives as well. city. Additionally, we wish to thank Yuri Beltrán, Without your willingness to devote time and who facilitated our visit at the Electoral Institute energy to meeting and speaking with us, none of Ciudad de México; Felipe de Alba who so of this would have been possible. Thank you kindly organized the visit and conference at the once more for introducing us to your city, and Cámara de Diputados - H. Congreso de la Unión; we hope that this study report will be at least Ricardo Ochoa, who spoke to us about sustain- an approximation of the collective perspectives able planning at CAPSUS; Clara Vadillo, the you have offered us, as we have attempted to leader of Public Policy Projects at the Institute sift through our own respective inquiries and for Transportation and Development Policy; observations. 3 Mexico City The interlacing overpasses give way to views the previous semester preparing for this trip in the midst of concrete and brightly colored bungalows. The by contextualizing the historical and emergent of change: air sits heavy and overcast over the long corridor issues Mexico City faces as the largest metropo- of the Paseo de la Reforma, where skyscrapers lis in North America, the arrival was embedded “Modernity rise above the jacaranda and palm trees. Starkly within a political changeover – President Andrés from below juxtaposed with the American restaurant chains Manuel López Obrador and Mexico City’s that dominate the neighborhood, on a corner, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum both having assu- and for all”? a man with a small cart sells elote, corn on the med office only a month prior. While meeting cob; a few steps away, two young children try different figures who were involved directly or to entice tourists to buy their candy bars and indirectly in the governance of Mexico City, this BY ERIKA WITT bubble gum. Stepping out into Mexico City, collective inquiry was structured around the one discovers a city bound to the car, a city that question: what are the policy consequences of spent the 20th century building itself around political change? its highways and a prominent oil industry, a city that in “managing” its lakes over centuries As urbanists’ oft-quoted author Italo Calvino squandered its natural resources and produced wrote: “You take delight not in a city’s seven or an arid urban environment, prone to subsidence, seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a drought, but also flooding. As the city grows, it question of yours.” Yet the answers provided were has become a palimpsest of people and its past, strikingly irresolute. As though echoing one ano- and the city may falter in fears of earthquakes ther, the consensus among the actors of Mexico and informality, crime and the consequences of City seemed to be that policy consequences corruption. Though this suggests Mexico City resulting from these changes were at too early of may face insurmountable crises in the future, it is a stage to adequately assess. Nevertheless, over both in these struggles that a vibrant metropolis the week the cohort became cognizant of some has not only persisted, but that the structurally of the challenges posed when opening a window embedded and pervasive problems have been vis-a-vis political restructuring. While the policy met by innovation as well as the agency of consequences will resonate in the Mexico City of political actors, organizations, and individuals. the future, in this early stage their impact mani- While such features of Mexico City may consti- fest primarily in terms of the shifting repertoire tute its downfall, it is perhaps not so much a city of actors’ actions, which at times evokes innova- in flames, but a rather a city in flux. The recent tion inasmuch at it evokes the revival of previous political change that is taking place in Mexico political trends, and aspirational rhetoric. has reinvigorated the country, and on the urban scale, it may be said that Mexico City is a phoe- President Obrador has been outspoken against nix of sorts: from its ashes, a viable metropolis is corruption from his inauguration on December emerging again. 1, 2018. He has taken action in manners that aim at a visible shift and symbolic shuffling of power In January 2019, the 2018-2020 cohort of – from his 100 Promises, which he opened with Sciences Po’s Master’s program, Governing the the idea for “modernity to be forged from below Large Metropolis took part in a weeklong study and for all,” to his critique of the past economic trip to Mexico City. While the cohort had spent neoliberalization of Mexico, and finally, his fight 4 EDITORIAL NOTE against fuel theft and corruption more generally. Mexico City is in a unique position because of Obrador’s zealousness, can perhaps be summed its designation as a federal district, which yields up by journalist, Raymundo Riva Palacio, of El complications in terms of political jurisdiction, Financiero who described the end of Obrador’s accentuated by limits to the autonomy in its first one hundred days in office, as “in a rush to decision-making given its embeddedness within implement the new and demolish the old, like a larger metropolitan region. Additionally, how none of his predecessors before him.” The party this transition plays out in the city, is attenuated alignment of the newly elected mayor of Mexico by the uncertainty painting the politicians, com- City, Claudia Sheinbaum, also offers a possibility munity leaders, and other actors who dually find to sustain momentum and partake in concerted themselves face-to-face with this reconfiguration efforts at different levels of government. This of power. study report does not intend to gloss over the durability of previous policy paths, but indeed Indeed, it is evident that this visit coincided with move beyond the duality of political regime a unique phase in the policy cycle, and at this change as merely a response to past choices, precipice it was necessary to sift through rhetoric and ask whether such political change, spoken to determine what constituted tangible change. of with tentativeness and speculation, possesses It became evident that one of the most viable the capacity for ushering in a paradigmatic shift. tools to analyze this historical moment was the Diego Rivera, Epopeya del pueblo mexicano, Mural at Palacio presidencial de México. Credits: Franck Giraud. 5 Mexico City in the midst of change concept of policy instruments (Lascoumes and anti-corruption discourse and its dissemination Le Galès 2004), which considers a policy com- to and appropriation by other actors in Mexico posed of at its root, elements which are on one City, while also discussing the diverse parti- hand technical, on the other, social. Instruments cipants in political life, from an international may be legislative and regulatory, economic and development bank, to NGOs, and community fiscal, agreement-based and incentive-based participation communities.