Urbanistas, Ambulantes and Mendigos: ■ the Dispute for Urbanspace in Mexico City, 1890-19301
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Para citar o enlazar este recurso, use: http://hdl.handle.net/11191/7375 Anuario de Esoac o> Urbano� -l,s1ori2 • Cu tura • Diseño 1 9 9 7 Urbanistas, ambulantes and mendigos: ■ the dispute for urbanspace in Mexico City, 1890-19301 Pablo Piccato Universityof Texas at Austin ANUARIO DE ESPACIOS URBANOS, HISTORIA, CULTURA Y DISEÑO ISSN digital: 2448-8828 No. 4 enero-diciembre de 1997. ANUARIO DE ESPACIOS URBANOS, HISTORIA, CULTURA Y DISEÑO ISSN digital: 2448-8828 No. 4 enero-diciembre de 1997. n Our v1ews of Porfinan Mex1co C1ty are heavily influ enced by the grandeur of the buildings and ave nues and the elegance of coloniasbuilt dunng that period. lt is easy to share the nostalgia for los tiem pos de don Porfirio, when Mexican society seerned as peaceful and well-organized as the walkways under the shady trees of the Paseo de la Reforma and the Alameda. Th1s essay, however, contends that such 1mages of civilization were only the pre carious result of a negot1at1on between the regime's projects of urban modernization and the everyday practices of the majority of the urban population. As the Porf1nan and post-revolut1onary elites tried to shape the city according to the1r des1res and eco nomic interests, they turned to the poiice to punish the lower-class public behaviors which did not mold to those projects. The urban poor, on the other hand, developed a sceptical v1ew of justice and ar der. They used the city in drfferent ways, walkmg accross the social boundaries between rich and marginal areas, challenging the authonty of the pollee, and even subverting the "official" d1ctates about street nomenclature. Turn-of-the century Mexico City embraced all the symbols of nat,onalism and many remarkable examples of colonial architecture. By the end of the first century of national lite. the city was also the locus of progress and the capital of Porfirio Díaz' long-lasting regime.Railroads, tramways, paved and illuminated streets, broad avenues, parks, new res idential areas and high buildings appeared as d1st- 1.lhts pape,is pan oí mydoctorald is;ertauona, 1he HIS!ory Departmento of lhe Unive<sityof Texas al Austm. "Crim na's ,n MelUco City. 1900- 1931: A Cultural History. • 1wish to 11'.an� thecommentsand cor rectlOf\S ofJ onatr'klnBrOYm, RicardoBracamonte, Fanny Cabre;O, Xóchi:tiMeoina, Maunoo Tenor,o, Pamela Voekeland Elhott Young ANUARIO DE ESPACIOS URBANOS, HISTORIA, CULTURA Y DISEÑO ISSN digital: 2448-8828 No. 4 enero-diciembre de 1997. ANUARIO DE ESPACIOS URBANOS, HISTORIA, CULTURA Y DISEÑO ISSN digital: 2448-8828 No. 4 enero-diciembre de 1997. 78 hi s1011 a urbana pablo piccato 79 tInct1ve sIgns of material advance. The end of the other side. l w ll analyzethe unwanted consequenc l an·s attempt to turn MexIco Into i Emperor Max1mi i dian communities from valuable lands. Far the ben troubled nineteenth century meant important es of late-nineteenth-century growth on the city's a modern European nation, and accelerated rn the eficiaries of th1s displacement, it was part of the changes in the design and use of urban space. These structure and, more 1mportantly, on the everyday late Porfmato. The ideal city the 1910 centennial of "c1vil1zing process" by which the countryside and changes were conceived on the understanding that lives of the urban majorities. A second section will celebrat1on of independence epitomized the unify Its uses would be transformed according to the 2 the nch and poor were not to m1ngle , in order to describe the demographic and technological chang Ing myths of progress and nationhood. The colo needs of a cosmopolitan city. Of all the cycles of separate the safe and beautiful areas of the mod es that caused the model to fail and the city to grow nial center of the city. around the Zócalo or Plaza change that Mexico City had experienced after the ern city from the dangerous and unhealthy mar at an unprecedented rhythm.Then, 1 will probe into Mayor, extended Its elegant arch1tecture toward the Spanish conquest, the one which peaked during thy classes who ginal zones. The state and the weal everyday practices and living conditions in the mar west on Avenida Juárez. reached the Alameda park the late Porfiriato was perhaps the most disruptive lead modernization wanted to translate the physi ginal city-the one growing around and within the and turned southwest onto the elegant Paseo de la because it combined population growth, land dis cal changes of the city into a new culture among Its Porfirian ideal city. Those pages will emphasize the Reforma (see diagram). The Alameda was partof 3 possession and heightened cultural conflrct. inhabitants. behaviors which authorities tried to reform because the colonial design of the city but became an up The urban des1gn that Porfirian planners intro But the elites' idea of urban renewal faced the they deemed them to be a threat to progress. The per-class place of le1 sure during the nineteenth cen duced corresponded with a more or less conscious challenge of growing and untamed population. f nal searon w ll iackle the urban pohcres that sought a i i tury. The Paseo de la Reforma linked Chapultepec attempt to re-organize society within the city The urban lower classes, so distan! from the aspIra to preserve the social geography of the city and the Castle and the presidential residence with the Around the Paseo de la Reforma, prívate compa t1ons oí wealth and comfort assoc1ated with collect1ve reaaions to those polic1es. Alameda. lts wide design and execution followed nies were licensed by city authorities to develop progress, used the city in their own way, deíying In sum, 1 w1II look at the cultural articulation of the aesthet1c and urbanistic ideas that had trans upper -and middle- class residential areas, such as tne class structured organizat on of the Porfü1an demograph:c and spatial growth under an authori formed Pans and other European capitals since the i the colonias Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Roma and Conde capital. As tensIons arose about the use of the tarian regIme. Th1s desrnptionof a d,sputed cIty ques 1850s. The projects of modernization of the cIty sa. The word colonias designated these new neigh streets and other pubhc areas, the government and tIons contemporary historiograpny in íts comention meant the displacement of the urban poor and In- borhoods-as if they represented the colonization elites rehed on the police and penal 1nstitut1ons to that elite projects of urban renewal wem unchal instill appropriate conduct among the people. Crim lenged and succeeded. As the urban poor used the · inal behav1or (whetner a genuine transgression of city rn ways that contradicted those pro¡ects, ,he ehte s 2. �ece�t s.-:ho ars havee x.;-nined th e outlInes and oo,ecti;es beh,nd 200. On the ·ae ot che city asan advemsement of :he reg me'sprogress , thoeayout of !he Paseo de a R eforma, the monumer1s ti"at stn.. c.tured a e n n . social norms. or simply a break of the many laws perceptions of "dangerous" areas identified poverty l l • s e Paolo R19uzz1, "MéxKo próspero; las dime sio es de la 1rrage . narra, ve of nation-bw Id ng,and :he pcb ,c ce ebr.;t ons rha,appropnated and regulations generated dunng the penod) ac w1th rnminalrty. The consequence was, on the ene i l ' nac,onal en el porf.-,ato." H;Srorias20 (A¡Jt<l•September. 19881 '37- those spacesand gaverhem a -s:,eo;1c 1deo,ogica ílea--ng See Maun c1-o 157. S eea lsoMan o Camarena, "Eltram.ia e1 é¡xxa decamb<o", H1stor1cs quires a different meaning in the context of th1s hand, that offrcrals 1ncreas1ngly rel1ed on punishment Tenor.o ...19·0 Mexico City Space and Nation 1n the C1ty of the 27 (Ca-Mar. 1992). 141-146; E�ela égu,arte Sakar. LosIard,nesen Mé,,cc dispute over the uses of the oty. Cnme, however, to Impose the1r social ideas while, on the other hand, Cenrenano: Jo urna!o/ Lar,n Amer cani 5rudies 28 (1996) 75-· o�. ¡la idea dela Ciudad decÍ!"lonónica·, Hi5ror,as 27 (Oct-Mar.1 992), 129- was not the only way in wh1ch people def1ed the the urban poor ident1fied the poiice and 1udicral sys Bc:"bara A Tenenbaum. "Stre erwtseH istory Tre Paseo de la Re'orma ; 3g 'Of a us.eful wo rkon ¡ti,¡ o P rfiran pro¡ect ofurban deve opment .. l •�d the lorfinan' State, 1876-1910, 10 w, am r 5eez'ey e: a . eds . e urban Utopía of Porfirian rulers. A host of practices tem with the interests of the wealthy. The ideal crty il, appl1ed in a stal capital '* Al1eo Wells ar> d G1lber; M. Joseph i l .. Riruals of Rule, Rilua/sof Resstance Pub ,c Celebrauons and Popular Mooem,zingvis.ons, Chíl.lngo Slveprin.s. and Prov,ncialGrow ,ng Pa ns in the streets (vending, begging, drink1ng or merely failed to impose its strict divisions urban space of Culture In Mex/Co(W,lmington Scholarly Re,ources. 1994), 127 -150ano Mérióa ai theTu rn of the Centu,y·. Mex,canSrud1es!Esrudios MexKanos walk1ng) also subverted the ideal social map. (particularly after ,he Revoluuon), and the connec ,n tha1sam e \'Olume Tony WOfgan. "Proletanans, Poi�,os, and Patnarchs. 8.2, S�mmer 1992 The Use and Aouseof Cu ltura Cvstoms In Early ndustria ,zat;onof MeXJco e The next pages will weave a coumerpoInt be tion between the appropriation of urban space and l l l 3. For a I01ger perspec:,ve on m se confllcts.see Andrés Lira.