Santa Fe Mexico City’s Challenged Megaproject

María Moreno-Carranco

he representative of a neighborhood association case of the Santa Fe project, Mexico City’s government Tin Mexico City told me that a new arrival in the followed the usual approach of undertaking urban initia- neighborhood asked him where to hook up his sewage tives in an authoritarian manner by means of top-down line. The response was surprising :“I have no clue where urban planning. Nonetheless, authoritarianism on the you can hook it up! If you go to the authorities they will tell part of the government inevitably required some negoti- you there is no sewage network. We are also missing a water ation and agreement with sectors of civil society, reveal- treatment plant… We need $50 million for the electric power ing the degree to which the implementation of transna- to be installed properly and we are short of one electric sub- tional urban projects is restricted by local circumstances. station… We have severe water shortages. We have only four police cars. We do not have garbage collection, street cleaning In the last 20 years, Mexico City has been reshaped and gardening services…. We had to fix potholes, repave by global and local social, political and economic the streets, paint and restore 90% of the street lighting.” relationships. Urban spaces have changed due to growth in the service sector and decline in manu- You might expect a response like this from people facturing, escalating social polarization, spatial seg- living in a squatter settlement or poor neighborhood. regation and a climate of extreme violence in the Surprisingly, the interview took place in Santa Fe, country related to organized crime. On the other Mexico City, the largest business, commercial and hand there has been an increasing democratization residential urban megaproject in Latin America. The of the city, growing social awareness of its inhabi- place was supposed to embody the “global city” in tants and greater political participation by citizens. Mexico, and the new resident was the facility manager of a multinational corporation. The city government initiated the Santa Fe megaproject in the late 1980s. The objective of the more than 2,000 acre development was to attract global investment Global City Dreams through the creation of a wide-ranging plan that would house transnational companies, shopping malls, cafes, “Where can I build my Manhattan?” This was the restaurants, movie theaters, a convention center, private question posed by Mexico City Mayor Carlos Hank- schools and universities, health services, high-end gated Gonzalez in the early 1980s. The Santa Fe project was communities and exclusive apartment buildings. The to place the city on the world map of great cities. In the sales brochure for the area described the master plan in some detail and highlighted a rigid zoning policy oriented to optimum land usage. The initial master María Moreno-Carranco is Professor at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (UAM) plan failed to take into account integration into the - Cuajimalpa. preexisting urban fabric. From the first drawings, the megaproject area was strictly segregated. An attempt was made to create a distinct urban environment

4 PROGRESSIVE PLANNING totally separated from the rest of the city. Zoning for environment, the Mexican government encour- the area was very specific, with little mixed-use, which aged international developers to visit the city, offer- resulted in an auto-dependent urban plan. In fact, ing them the opportunity to invest in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was planned as a segregated urban enclave. In 1993, Mayor Manuel Camacho resigned his posi- The government successfully persuaded several in- tion to protest the failure of President Salinas to name vestors to come on board, and construction of the him the presidential candidate by the PRI (Partido first office buildings began in the zone known asPeña Revolucionario Institucional) for the 1994 elections. Blanca. In 1992, during the economic boom gener- Since Santa Fe was Camacho’s project, the ambitious ated by neoliberal reforms implemented by Mexico plans for its development were hindered by this polit- President Salinas, in a state of high enthusiasm and ical development. When Camacho left office, Manuel optimism—a point when the presidential promise of Aguilera took his place for the remaining year of the turning Mexico into a first world country seemed Salinas administration. According to various developers, to be possible—Mexican businessmen were eager while investment in Santa Fe continued—with more to invest in the city. Several buildings were initiated than 20 office buildings built during that time—the and there was a great deal of promise surrounding government ceased allocating resources to needed infra- the enterprise. Taking advantage of this propitious structure, and what existed began to deteriorate. When Photo: María Moreno Carranco María Moreno Photo:

Santa Fe’s Skyline in the Cruz Manca Area. The buildings were built between 2001 and 2006 and this photo was taken in 2008. The buildings on the left are mainly office towers and the ones on the right are apartment

NO. 199 | SPRING 2014 5 new infrastructure was built it was evident until Santa Fe ceased to be are no formal options for them. of poor quality, and several parts the mayor’s priority and deep levels of the project were not completed. of corruption were revealed. One of These problems with urban ser- the first investors in the area named vices in Santa Fe, such as water, corrupt government officials as the traffic, sewage and electricity, make Global Dreams Clash with Local main beneficiaries of the funds. constant headlines in the local Realities Apparently some politicians kept newspapers. But even with all these the money while others diverted setbacks, by 2006 the plots of the The dreams and desires for a global resources to political campaigns megaproject were almost fully sold city started to collide with local or other projects of their choice. out. By 2012, Santa Fe was the realities. The master plan, models, home to approximately two thou- sketches and descriptions of the The fact is that to date, despite the sand national and transnational megaproject were disconnected large amount of money generated corporations, four shopping malls, from the reality of what actually from sales and the property taxes 12 hotels, 230 restaurants, 40 movie happened on the ground, illustrating collected from tenants, Santa Fe’s theaters, private schools, private that inserting a foreign urban model urban services and the access roads and public universities, hospitals, was not enough to produce a first connecting the area with the rest high-end gated communities and world enclave in Mexico City. of the city are in an extremely pre- apartment buildings in which some carious state. Some days, the fact 10,000 families live in 7,983 housing • that the site used to be a garbage units. An estimated 205,000 people dump is evident: the fetid smell of commute to the area every day. “. . . inside the rotting garbage reaches the buildings buildings you when the temperature changes and No matter how hard elites and de- are in Houston the wind blows in their direction. velopers tried to live in or produce Several corporate buildings – such a first world environment, their but when you as, at the time, Daimler Chrysler’s desires collide with local realities, go out you are headquarters – were not connected creating a space in which, quoting in Calcutta . . .” to the public water system for over the president of the neighborhood ten years and had to pay for wa- association, • “inside the buildings ter tank trucks to fill their cisterns. you are in Houston but when you go Over 1,200 houses from luxury out you are in Calcutta.” With his condominiums discharge sewage comparisons he is making it clear According to interviews with early into ravines while others do so into that this is not just about Santa investors and a former government the ground water system. Due to Fe succeeding on a global level official, the money raised by the the lack of good public transpor- to become Houston; it is also the Santa Fe project served as President tation and roads connecting the fear that it may in fact “fail” at a Salinas’ petty cash, used for the rest of the city to the area, peo- global level and become Calcutta. execution of his pet projects (such ple working or living in Santa Fe as the remodeling of the national have difficult and long commutes. auditorium, and the city zoo and Regardless of the developers’ and Neighborhood Association a new children’s museum) instead neighbors’ aims to create a pris- Manages Services of being reinvested in Santa Fe’s tine image, and their constant fight infrastructure or in poor urban ar- with informal vendors, street food None of the local authorities have eas, as initially stated as a political stands serving the low-paid employ- solved the problems of Santa Fe. justification of the project. The dif- ees flood the area during business They refuse to talk about the ference between the government’s hours. Since planners neglected the deficiencies caused by rampant cor- promises and its actions were not needs of low-income people there ruption. Instead, the neighborhood

6 PROGRESSIVE PLANNING association is taking over the re- sponsibility of solving infrastructure deficiencies that were supposed to have been dealt with by the gov- ernment, which raises questions regarding accountability and citizen- ship. From 2004 to 2011, the Santa Fe neighborhood association made agreements with the city govern- ment to manage part of the income generated from taxation of the land. With these resources, the association provided urban services and the ur- ban conditions partially improved. In 2012 the city´s Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera stopped allocating resources to the neighbors and the precarious service provision started again, with the increasing discontent of the locals. As we have seen, polit- ical and economic elites are not nec- essarily aligned. Even a neoliberal

state many have interests divergent Telles courtesyPhoto of Luis from those of the capitalist class. Santa Fe garbage dump in the early 1980s.

Santa Fe must be viewed as part of a longer history of the deep involve- ment of political figures and bu- left by agencies of the various gov- as a top-down process in which reaucrats in urban development and ernments, the investors, developers global perspectives simply erase landmark projects in Mexico City. and residents of Santa Fe took local outcomes; on the contrary, Thirteen of the most recent Mexico the situation into their own hands. particular forms of globalization City mayors have declared their These economic elites’ desire for are produced, which are unique in intention to run for the national return on investment is leading to their integration of local circum- presidency; so far a few have been the further privatization and segre- stances with global aspirations. This appointed presidential candidates gation of Santa Fe, but not without “partial” repackaging of global but none has succeeded. As a con- protest from excluded social groups. ideals redefines local identity. In sequence of the practice by which this way, with the Santa Fe project every mayor favors a specific new Megaprojects have often proven to Mexico City produces “global- project, there remain a number of be the result of a series of erroneous ization” on its own terms. P2 unfinished initiatives. Several politi- decisions. Rather than seeing the cians claim to be the authors of the outcomes as “accidental” or “unin- idea for Santa Fe, blaming previous tended,” we must, in order to learn or subsequent administrations for from the process, understand what Santa Fe’s shortcomings. This illus- is missing in the blueprints and in trates a lack of accountability typical their implementation. The Santa Fe of the Mexican political system. megaproject substantiates the fact Due to this and the power vacuum that we cannot define globalization

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