34 Scapegoat 6 DF / NAFTA 35 From the Series ... http://www. 44 University of Texas The World /07/201271 CIEPAC 562, 30 Livia Corona Benjamin as banks and grocery stores. Yet demand for bancomundial. See Sharon Press, 1998). Bank Group 1121224166933. May 2008, http:// org/es/news/fea- Bailey Blasco, (Washington: html. www.ciepac.org/ these low-income homes continues to increase ture/2012/11/13/ Constructing 51 FIAS, April 2008), boletines/chiapasal- and developers continue to provide them mexico-middle- : See Ioan Grillo, El 26, https://www. 58 dia.php?id=562. class-grows-over- Colonial Narco: Inside wbginvestmentcli- José Steinsleger, From the with extreme efficiency. During Fox’s six-year past-decade. Conflicts over Mexico’s mate.org/uploads/ “Guatemala 64 presidency, 2,350,000 homes were built, at a Culture, Space Criminal SEZs - Performance, y Honduras: José Gil Olmos, “El 38 and Authority Insurgency (New Lessons Learned ¿Bantustanes despojo intermina- rate of 2,500 homes per day, and this trend is Aditya Nigam, (Basingstoke: York: Bloomsbury and Implications for para ricos?” La ble de los pueblos set to continue. Desire Named Palgrave Macmillan, Press, 2011), and Zone Development. Jornada, 23 indígenas, Proceso Series Two Development 2010). John Ross, “The pdf. January 2013, 1928, (12 October (New Delhi: Penguin Next Mexican http://www. 2013), http://www. Group, 2011), 3. 45 Revolution,” 56 jornada.unam. proceso.com. Maurizio Lazzarato, Counterpunch, Ed Vulliamy, mx/2013/01/23/ mx/?p=355293. Million 39 “De las sociedades 21 September “Ciudad Juárez is opinion/025a1pol. Ibid., 7. disciplinarias a 2010, http://www. All Our Futures,” 65 las sociedades de counterpunch. The Guardian, 20 59 Judith Butler and 40 control” Revista org/2010/09/21/ June 2011, http:// Alfonso Valenzuela, Athena Athanasiou, Isabel Turrent, “El Euphorion 5 the-next-mexican- www.theguardian. “Santa Fe (México): Dispossession: Homes for caracter nacional: (July–December revolution. com/commentis- Megaproyectos para The Reseña de Mañana 2009), 46, http:// free/2011/jun/20/ una ciudad divi- Performative o pasado: El revistaeuphorion. 52 war-capitalism-mex- dida”, Cuadernos in the Political misterio de files.wordpress. Neil Brenner and ico-drug-cartels. Geográficos 40, (Cambridge, UK: Mexico los mexica- com/2012/05/ Nik Theodore, no. 1 (2007): 53–66, Polity Press, 2013). nos de Jorge G. euphorion_5_ “Cities and the 57 http://www.ugr. Castañeda,” Letras cerebro_y_estetica_ Geographies of See Charles es/~cuadgeo/ 66 Libres, 11 August julio-dic_2009.pdf. ‘Actually Existing Bowden, Murder docs/articu- Ong, 2011, http://www. Neoliberalism,’” City: Ciudad los/040/040-003.pdf. Neoliberalism (2006– letraslibres.com/ 46 Antipode 34, no 3 Juárez and as Exception, 78. revista/libros/el- Maurizio Lazzarato, (July 2002): 370. the Global 60 caracter-nacional. The Making of Economy’s New Margarita Pérez the Indebted 53 Killing Fields Negrete, “Santa Fe: present) 41 Man (Cambridge, Ong, (New York: Nation A ‘Global Enclave’ Slavoj Žižek, Mass.: The MIT Neoliberalism Books, 2010), and in Mexico City,” “Capitalism with Press, 2012) as Exception, 77. Juárez (1998). Journal of Place In 2000, Mexican presidential candidate Vicente Asian Values,” Paul Romer’s model Management Fox Quesada proposed an unprecedented Aljazeera, 13 47 54 of Charter Cities and November 13, See: Ivonne Simón Levy, (http://urbaniza- Development 2 plan to build two million low-income homes 2011, http://www. Santoyo Orozco, “Nacionalidades tionproject.org) no. 1 (2009): 33–40. throughout the country during his six year term. aljazeera.com/ “The Apparatus creativas y capi- currently being con- Livia Corona Benjamin programmes/talkto- of Ownership,” talismo chilango,” sidered in Honduras 61 On the eve of his election, Fox proclaimed, “My jazeera/2011/10/ Scapegoat 06 Animal Politico, as a “solution to Patricia Muñoz Rios, presidency will be remembered as the era of 201110281336 (March 2014). 23 October 2012, poverty” could be “5 millones de ca- 0731764.html. http://www. considered a less sas abandonadas,” public housing.” To enact this initiative, the 48 animalpolitico.com/ costly alternative— La Jornada, 9 federal government agency INFONAVIT ceded 42 Jamie Peck and blogueros-el-chino- in social terms—to April 2013, See Lorenzo Meyer, Adam Tickell, taliban/2012/10/23/ the maquiladora http://www. the construction of low-income housing to a “Por sus frutos “Neoliberalizing nacionalidades- model epitomized jornada.unam. small group of private real estate investors. la conoceréis (a Space” Antipode creativas-y-neocapi- by Juárez. See mx/2013/04/09/ la economía),” 34, no. 3 (July 2002): talismo-chilango. Belén Fernández, sociedad/039n1soc. Then, almost overnight, grids 20 to 80,000 Reforma, 6 June 390. “Charter Cities: identical homes sprouted up, and they 2013, and Turrent, 55 Neoliberal Viagra,” 62 “El caracter nacio- 49 The difference be- Al Jazeera Mariela Zunino, continue to spread in remote agrarian territory nal.” Saskia Sassen, tween Mexican and English, 19 “Integración para throughout the country. To encounter these “Cities Today: Asian EPZs is that in February 2013, el despojo: Proyecto 43 A New Frontier Asia, EPZs in hybrid http://www. Mesoamérica, o developments by land, by air, or even via See Yevgeny for Major zones are required aljazeera.com/in- la nueva escalada satellite imagery, evokes a rare sensation. These Kuznetsov and Developments,” to be fenced in, depth/opinion/ de la apropiación Carl Dahlman, The ANNALS of while in Mexico EPZ 2013/02/2013 del territorio” are not the neighborhoods of a “Home Sweet Mexico’s the American companies are al- 2196563166201. CIEPAC 584, 8 Home” dream fulfilled, but are ubiquitous Transition to Academy of lowed to be located html, and Belén June 2010, http:// a Knowledge- Political and in the same areas as Fernández, www.ciepac.org/ grids of ecological and social intervention on Based Economy Social Science firms registered un- “Partitioning boletines/chiapasal- a scale and of consequences that are difficult (Washington: (November 2009): der other regimes. Honduras: The dia.php?id=584. The World Bank 53–71. See: “Special Advent of Charter to grasp. In these places, urbanization is Institute, 2008), and Economic Zones: Cities,” Al 63 reduced to the mere construction of housing. Kose, Meredith, and 50 Performance, Jazeera English, Japhy Wilson, “La Towe, “How Has Michael Johns, The Lessons Learned, 14 July 2012, http:// nueva fase del Plan There are nearly no public amenities—such as NAFTA Affected City of Mexico and Implications www.aljazeera. -Panamá schools, parks, and transportation systems. the Mexican in the Age of for Zone com/indepth/ en Chiapas”, Economy?”. Díaz (Austin: Development,” opinion/2012 Boletines del There are few commercial structures—such

... Two Million Homes for Mexico (2006–present) 36 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 37 from the series ... Livia Corona Benjamin

French Pastry, Ixtapaluca, Edo. Mex., 2008 Living Room to Bedroom Conversion, Mérida, 2011

... Two Million Homes for Mexico (2006–) 38 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 39 from the series ... Livia Corona Benjamin

Moving in, , 2009

Day Worker at Home Expansion Site, Cancún, 2010 ... Two Million Homes for Mexico (2006–) 40 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 41 from the series ... Livia Corona Benjamin

Progressive Development, Los Héroes, Puebla, 2008 Homeowner Activism Center, Cuatro Vientos, Edo. Mex., 2011

... Two Million Homes for Mexico (2006–) 42 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 43 Mexico City Modern: ...

Raymond B. Craib and Frida Kahlo.”4 One suspects, by sheer virtue of its prominent absence in the text, that revolution is also part of that canon for Tenorio- Mexico City Trillo. Mexico’s social revolution of 1910-1920 has cast a long shadow over the country’s twentieth century history and historiography. Modern: Invocations and images of the agrarian leader Emiliano Zapata, the social bandit Pancho Villa, and a landscape of peasants and pueblos A Review dominate the historiography, overwhelming the radical Flores Magón brothers, industrial work- ers, urban anarchists, and Mexico City itself. This Essay is a revolution defined by pueblos and peasants rather than cities and communists—for compel- “Overcrowded, polluted, corrupted, Mexico ling reasons, as Alan Knight has demonstrated City offers the world a grim lesson.”1 Thus in his two-volume magnum opus.5 proclaimed Time Magazine in 1984. Never Mexico City was not, of course, removed mind that it could just as easily have been from the revolution: pitched battles unfolded describing any number of cities in the world, in its streets, plots were hatched behind its including a number of metropolises in the US, closed doors, varied armies occupied its plazas, as Mike Davis’s indictment of Los Angeles its hillsides, and its Sanborns.6 But Tenorio- (City of Quartz) showed six years later. But Trillo is interested in Mexico City not as a Mexico City—in theory so close to the US, so site of revolutionary history but as a capital far from modernity—was much easier fodder of modernity. The revolution perhaps serves for the progenitors of predictable caricatures up too many visions of peasants and pistols of elsewhere.2 Recent media obsessions with which, along with tropicality and indigeneity,

narco-trafficking and its attendant violence are caciques and calaveras, have long haunted Raymond B. Craib only the latest instantiation of a long tradition the pages devoted to Mexico’s history.7 Thus, of casting Mexico as a lawless, corrupt, for Tenorio-Trillo 1910 is a date notable less for and failed state. Meanwhile, the US State the purported “start” of the revolution than for Department warns travelers away from Mexico the celebrations of the centenario in Mexico (the entire country!) even as the body count City, which marked the 100th anniversary of in the US from gun violence—merely random, the rebellions that would culminate in Mexican unpredictable, scattershot, apolitical, and independence from Spanish rule. And 1919 is utterly routine—grows at a steady clip.3 notable less for the purported end of the armed Projections and predictions such as those phase of the revolution than for the moment of articulated by Time are nothing new, as its intellectual and political commodification, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo shows in I Speak of when an array of radicals and intellectuals the City. At a hefty 500 pages, Tenorio-Trillo’s from other shores arrived in Mexico City’s book offers a vision of the city’s history not central streets seeking a location in which “to found in most travel guides, popular journalism, safely try out all sorts of enchantments and or history books. It is reminiscent at times of disenchantments.” In the process they helped 47,547 Homes for Mexico, Ixtapaluca, 2007 Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, although create a Mexico “frozen as a modern metaphor less polemical in tone and more elliptical in of atemporal race, endless community, and style, in its efforts to force readers out of clichéd redemptory violence,” or what Tenorio-Trillo visions of authenticity, paradise, or hell—and calls the “Brown Atlantis.”8 The revolution, then, radical (often racialized) otherness. Or, in this is very present—just not as the self-contained, All images © Livia Corona Benjamin. Courtesy of the artist and Galería Agustina Ferreyra. case, “fiesta, siesta, sombrero, pistola agrarian, peasant rebellion it would come to

... A Review Essay 44 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 45 Mexico City Modern: ... be codified as; instead, the revolution appears by anyone attempting to speak, write, paint, or with increased economic uncertainty, drew Neza.19 Life may not be easy there, but it is as part of a broader, global epoch of crisis and otherwise express culture.”12 sharp responses from private industrialists no more a “place” of fatalism than Polanco or social change, of protest and hunger, of labour Tenorio-Trillo’s study ends around 1940, the and businessmen. If in the 1960s Mexico had Las Lomas—two of Mexico City’s most elite strife and political agitation: “it was the same in beginning of a period that would see enormous appeared poised to make the jump to “first- districts—are places of bourgeois anomie or Philadelphia as in Buenos Aires, in Mexico City transformations in Mexico City. The city grew world” status, the 1970s were, as Louise Walker individualist success. Judith Adler Hellman’s as in Barcelona, in Berlin as in Delhi.”9 at a remarkable pace, swelling rapidly with shows in vivid detail in Waking from the Mexican Lives, a wonderful collection of The comparisons are purposeful. Tenorio- the influx of rural migrants and international Dream, a cold reality check as the economic interviews from the early 1990s, gives us a Trillo constantly pulls the reader toward refugees, fuelled by an industrial boom and slowdown, inflation, increased foreign debt, window onto the practices of working people comparisons that most histories avoid. And government-led development. Its population and an eventually floating peso took its on Mexico City’s margins, in the process this is precisely the point. Thus, in an early doubled in size between the 1940s and 1960s toll. (The country’s foreign debt—deuda demolishing the persistent and pernicious chapter he compares and contrasts Mexico as Mexico itself went from a country of largely externa—would grow in the early 1980s to stereotypes of fatalism, machismo, waste, and City and Washington DC. The two capital cities rural cultivators to mostly urban inhabitants. such a size that it would be wryly referred to apathy.20 Life on Mexico City’s margins in fact have more in common than the dominant Industry blossomed at a steady pace, as did the as the deuda eterna—the eternal debt). has spurred all kinds of political mobilization historiographical prejudices would lead one to economy with an average six percent annual In the meantime, rural migrants poured into and social innovation. The economic crisis of the believe (the standard comparisons, predictably GDP growth rate—known as the Mexican Mexico City by the hundreds or thousands 1970s—as well as the effects of the repression enough, are between Mexico City and Paris, Miracle—in the middle decades of the century. each day, looking for shelter and work. This in Tlatelolco—spurred a new wave of organizing or between Mexico City and itself), and he This was Mexico’s so-called “Golden Age.” As vast migration simply overwhelmed the state’s efforts in the form of coordinating bodies (or observes that in fact “the aristrocratic Spain Mexico City grew, so did its middle classes. capacity to provide, and most new arrivals coordinadoras) that would address the that created Mexico City” also shaped “the By 1970, somewhere between a quarter and settled on the ever-expanding edges of the needs of labour, peasants, and urban dwellers. plans for the US capital.” The point is made a third of Mexico’s population was middle city. They built with what they could find and, As Tom Barry notes, the autonomous space in various ways repeatedly throughout the class—an amorphous multitude of lawyers and as the population increased, the informal but they created made them very hard to co-opt or text in order to emphasize that “Mexico City doctors, white-collar and intellectual workers, very real neighbourhoods that developed control, and set the groundwork for a vibrant has been so much a part of the making of the bureaucrats and merchants, supervisors and would eventually reach a size where they could grassroots democratization movement.21 modern that examining it is but another way to technical workers, their numbers spurred on petition the government for various services.15 Among such efforts was the Urban Popular inhabit what is known as the modern world.”10 by a growing population of university students The quintessential example is Ciudad Movement’s National Coordinating Committee Why is it, then, that questions of authenticity who studied at the National Autonomous Nezahualcóyotl, located on a drained lake bed (or Conamup). Founded in 1981, Conamup

and imitation can be asked of Mexico City University of Mexico (UNAM), housed on a at what was once the eastern edge of Mexico organized people not in places where they were Raymond B. Craib with such ease but not of Paris or London or, sprawling campus in the south of the city City. Settled in 1946 by a number of displaced subject to direct control by PRI infrastructure yes, even Washington DC? Can Mexico City suitably named “University City.”13 poor, it grew to become Mexico’s fourth largest (the workplace, for example), but in the barrios be cosmopolitan without being imitative? In a Mexico’s glory appeared to be confirmed city by the 1970s with a population that where they lived, taking up issues such as rich chapter on Mexico City interiors, Tenorio- when it was granted the onerous honour was, and remains, marginalized in terms of lighting, housing, sewage, trash collection, Trillo writes that “all late nineteenth-century of hosting the 1968 Olympic Games, which economic insecurity and infrastructure.16 During schools, public transport, and the like.22 Like interiors, whether in Paris, New York, Buenos appeared on the horizon just as economic the rainy season the roads are frequently many of the grassroots organizations formed at Aires, or Mexico City” were imitative “and growth began to slow and social inequalities inundated and services are often intermittent; the margins, it acquired dramatic importance could not be otherwise.”11 It will no longer do started expanding. Confronted with the visual during the dry season the wind kicks up the in the wake of the devastating earthquake of to continually replicate diffusionist arguments evidence of capricious expenditures and an dust of the lake bed, blowing fecal matter into 1985, which levelled parts of downtown Mexico that situate points of origin in Paris, London, emerging urban and social crisis, protests the atmosphere, such that one can contract City. Here Mexican civil society revealed that and New York when in fact the very notion mounted. Dissent and strikes were not salmonella or hepatitis just from breathing it would more than make do while a lethargic of “diffusion” itself, as well as “authenticity” unheard of in the 1950s—most prominently the air.17 Even so, the descriptions of “Neza,” state wallowed in confusion in the immediate and “imitation,” are part of an unequal geo- by railroad and education workers—but the and many of Mexico City’s margins, as places aftermath of the seismic event that took some politics of the commodity form. The peripheral ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) of “misery, loathing, and a lack of identity,” 10,000 lives. The short-term result of the is real, inasmuch as it becomes a category that hegemonic bubble really burst in October inhabited by “mutants” and “souls on the work of such grassroots organizations was a real people are forced to really inhabit, but this 1968 with the violent assault on protestors in run” are highly problematic because they real challenge to PRI’s supremacy in the 1988 should hardly be justification for reproducing Mexico City’s Tlatelolco Plaza, days before the pathologize the poor based upon the simplified elections; the long-term result has been, in binaries of centre and periphery as if they were Olympic Games opening ceremonies.14 By the notion of a “culture of poverty,” characterized part, various responses by the government to essential. Indeed, the dilemmas of authenticity, early 1970s the ruling party had incurred the ire by fatalism, abandonment, resignation, and popular demands for low-cost housing, rent of “importation” or mimicry, are “nothing more of more than students and radicals. President machismo.18 Such characterizations pay little control and the like. than the unsolvable problems faced everywhere Luis Echevarría’s leftist rhetoric, combined attention to the agency of the inhabitants of These are the broadest of brushstrokes

... A Review Essay 46 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 47 Mexico City Modern: ... for making sense of Mexico City in the late reportage.” A few riffs from some of the essay’s culture, and politics, has been translated into Notes Cambridge University that emphasized the Press, 1986). urban and outward- twentieth century. For a street-level view of the opening lines are useful for illustrative purposes: English. In the meantime, newer works, in 1 oriented history of city, there is a superb collection of writings from “In the future all the roads in Mexico will be English and by writers based at least initially Cited in Aurora 6 Latin America, and Camacho de Schmidt The nature of sought to counter some of Mexico City’s most astute and highly called Insurgentes.” “The Cuauhtémoc District, in the US, have taken up the charge of writing and Arthur Schmidt, those revolutions the persistent regarded commentators, assembled by Rubén like the rest of Mexico City’s district boundaries, about youth culture (Mexico City’s population “Foreward: The depends, as it would images of Latin Shaking of a Nation,” in any instance, on America as rural, Gallo in The Mexico City Reader. If there is was a brain wave of President Luis Echevarría is young: one in three residents in the DF is in Nothing, the protagonists feudal, inquisitorial, one book to throw in your luggage on a future that our city hardly deserved.” The Zona Rosa, between the ages of 15 and 29), underground Nobody: The one chooses. For and isolated, see Voices of the example, if one Jose Luis Romero, trip to the DF (Distrito Federal), this is the one. It in 1965, is “cheap perfume in a fancy bottle.” music scenes, popular culture, and Mexico Mexico City were to take the Latinoamerica: is one of the very best introductions to Mexico Or take Augusto Monterrosso’s approximately City’s relentless consumption and production of Earthquake, experience of Las ciudades y 26 Elena Poniatowska working women las ideas (Medellin: City’s recent history—say, the past five de- 500-word whirling, run-on paragraph on maids, modernity. For these writers the city is deliri- (Philadelphia: Temple in Mexico City, Universidad de cades—as well as to its rich literary output. The which begins thus: “I love maids because ous, frenetic, and improvised, terms which at University Press, one would have to Antioquia, 1999 1995), x. question the degree [1976]). Reader offers to the general (and non-Spanish they’re unreal, because they leave, because times veer close to cliché, although the subject to which a revolution speaking) reader a collection of writings on the they don’t follow orders, because they embody matter in any given chapter might demand such 2 occurred at all. For 8 27 See, among others, women in Mexico Tenorio-Trillo, I city by some of its most prominent intellectuals the last vestiges of unstructured labor and they exuberant terminology. This is Mexico City Robert Kaplan, City, at least, their Speak of the City, and observers—including Juan Villoro, Carlos lack insurance and benefits [...].” Or the artist from the perspective of a particular set of users; An Empire revolution was an 94, 148, and, more Wilderness: attenuated one, generally, chapters 4 Monsiváis, Jorge Ibargüengoitia, and Guillermo Jonathan Hernández’s efforts to document the city as everyday life, assembled from spatial Travels in to a gradual process and 5. Sheridan—as well as some newer voices. Gallo’s trying to get documented. Pretending to be practices, which is, as some would have it, the America’s Future of change in the (New York: Vintage, labour market and 9 introduction is a rich evocation of the city and deaf and mute, he asked each bureaucrat he essence of the city itself: “You can be born and 1999). workplace (and the Ibid., 93. an effort to rethink how one might theorize the encountered to write down what he needed to raised in this city, vow never to leave it, and still public discourses 3 about gender, 10 city: “What kind of questions should we ask do in order to get a replacement student ID. The hardly know it: to live here is simply to practice This is not to work, sexuality, Ibid., xv. See also to try to understand Mexico City?” His answer resulting labyrinthine experience—expressed in (ejercer is the dazzling verb employed by downplay what has and morality that 415. I was reminded unfolded in parts of attended such in places of Doreen draws us back to where we started: Tenorio- a series of photographs—bears painful witness Salvador Novo) some of its locations, those that Mexico over the past change) that most Massey’s efforts to Trillo’s work. Too many studies of Mexico City, in and ironic homage to bureaucracy. (It took some best conform to one’s temperament.”28 It is a decade or so. It is dramatically shaped see time and space 24 simply to emphasize and reshaped their as so inextricably Gallo’s reading, have compared the city only to three dozen steps to get his replacement ID.) city to be celebrated rather than condemned that the violence has reality. See Susie entwined that itself. Obsessed with its deep historicity, com- Or take the selected images of Daniela Rossell, for the apparent futility of centralized planning; a geography. Efforts Porter, Working geography becomes to track non-suicide Women in Mexico a “simultaneity mentators end up either celebrating the city’s who photographed friends (mostly women, a city seen from its streets, all 85,000 of them, deaths by firearms in City: Public of stories so far,” the US is not easy. Discourses rather than as a continuities or lamenting its ruptures. In either wealthy, and politically connected) primarily in 850 of which are named Juárez, 750 named Raymond B. Craib For an effort, see and Material means to construct case, the city remains a prisoner of a kind of their homes in the Las Lomas district of Mexico Hidalgo, and 700 named Morelos; a city which is Chris Kirk and Dan Conditions, discrete locations exotic parochialism, “isolated from other cities City. Her subjects included Paulina Díaz Ordaz, a contingent assemblage of architectural forms Kois, “How Many 1879–1931 (Tucson: on temporal axes People Have Been University of Arizona that are morally and around the world.” Rather than compare Mexico grand-daughter of President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz that quickly escaped efforts at continuity and Killed by Guns since Press, 2003). Or politically valenced. City’s challenges, successes, or Metro system to, and stepdaughter of Raúl Salinas de Gortari. conformity, an effective “jumbling of historical Newtown?,” Slate. one can take the Massey, For Space com, 16 September case of Rubén (Thousand Oaks, CA: say, Moscow’s, authors often simply compare it Raúl, arrested and jailed for illegal enrichment, periods,” and a city that refuses to obey not 2013, http://www. Gallo’s Mexican Sage, 2005). to itself. Or they see only its drift toward unifor- is the brother of former President Carlos Salinas only planning fantasies but also historical slate.com/articles/ Modernity, which 29 news_and_politics/ concerns “the other 11 mity, fretting over its preservation as if it were de Gortari. (The only male individually photo- and political teleologies. This is a revolution crime/2012/12/ Mexican revolution,” Tenorio-Trillo, I a specimen to be pickled. In contrast, Gallo’s graphed in the collection is Carlos Salinas’ son of a different kind: one more anarchist in its gun_death_tally_ that is, the “cultural Speak of the City, every_american_ transformations 79. collection brings together essays which focus Emiliano.) Aristocratic kitsch hardly comes sensibilities than Marxist or liberal, more gun_death_since_ triggered by new on the experience of the city, taking “the reader close to describing the results, and the scandal horizontal than hierarchical. There is a danger newtown_sandy_ media in the years 12 hook_shooting.html. after the armed Ibid., 416. For though a series of fragments, creating a reading that erupted when the photographs were of fetishizing improvisation, as if daily practice conflict.” His earlier, superb experience that would approximate the feeling eventually published as a book in 2002, Ricas itself were somehow emancipatory. It is not. 4 protagonists are efforts to wrestle Maurico Tenorio- artists and writers, with questions of of walking down the streets of the capital and y famosas (rich and famous women) was But the term does nonetheless work as a means Trillo, I Speak of and he cheekily authenticity and being relentlessly bombarded by heterogeneous hardly surprising given the sordid revelations to give voice to the revolutions of everyday life the City: Mexico begins his analysis national culture, see 23 City at the Turn in Detroit, Michigan. Roberto Schwarz, impressions and sensations.” of graft and nepotism that accompanied in a Mexico City which residents continually of the Twentieth Gallo, Mexican Misplaced The collection is organized around various the birth of neoliberalism during this period.25 make their own. They know that, contrary to Century (Chicago: Modernity: The Ideas: Essays University of Chicago Avant-Garde and on Brazilian themes: “Places,” “the Metro,” “Monuments,” Gallo’s collection is all the more valuable Time magazine’s 1984 headline, there are Press, 2013), xxi. the Technological Culture (London: “Eating and Drinking,” “Maids,” “The Margins,” given that so many of Mexico City’s chroniclers no “grim lessons” to be learned from Mexico Revolution Verso, 1992); Emilia 5 (Cambridge: MIT Viotti da Costa, The among others. It is a wonderful and rich intro- have rarely been translated in to English. Little City that could not be learned in any other Knight, The Press, 2005), 1. Brazilian Empire: duction to the city, built out of short crónicas, work, for example, by Carlos Monsiváis, one of major metropolis.30 And in the meantime, there Mexican Myths and Revolution, 2 7 Histories (Chapel a cross between a “literary essay and urban the great commentators on Mexico City, popular is much still to be taught. vols. (Cambridge: For a classic work Hill: University of

... A Review Essay 48 Scapegoat 6 Mexico DF / NAFTA 49 Habitability: ...

North Carolina Press, El Gran Pueblo: in Mexico City the summer of 2013, Artifacts of persistent orientalist Isadora Hastings and Gerson Huerta García 2000), especially A History of (Berkeley: University Raúl Salinas was Revolution: hyperbole that “Liberalism: Theory Greater Mexico of California exonerated of the Architecture, pervades the US and Practice”; (Upper Saddle River, Press, 1996), and charges. He had been Society and media and popular Elías José Palti, NJ: Prentice Hall, Mema’s House, released from prison Politics in Mexico perceptions of “The Problem of 2004), 422. Mexico City: On in 2005 after more City, 1920–1940 Mexico and its Habitability: ‘Misplaced Ideas’ Transvestites, than 10 years. (Lanham: Rowman & modern metropolis. Revisited: Beyond the 17 Queens, and Littlefield, 2008). Lida, First Stop in ‘History of Ideas’ in Ibid., 423; Hellman, Machos (Chicago: 26 the New World, Latin America,” The Mexican Lives, 25. University of The statistics on age 30 199–228, quoted text Journal of the Chicago, 1998). For come from Daniel Lida, for example, on 204 and 227. Cooperación History of Ideas 18 a classic text on Hernández, Down neither avoids 67, no. 1 (2006); and The quoted text marginality, see and Delirious in issues of crime and Neil Larsen, “Roberto comes from Mexican Janice Perlman, Mexico City: The pollution, nor does Schwartz: A Quiet intellectual Roberto The Myth of Aztec Metropolis he fetishize them. Comunitaria Housing project based on local cultural uses and techniques. (Brazilian) Revolution Vallarino, excerpted Marginality: in the Twenty He had lived in Not yet conducted in Critical Theory,” in in Gilbert Joseph and Urban Poverty First Century Mexico City for six Determinations: Timothy Henderson, and Politics in (New York: Scribner, years when he was In the early twenty-first century, rural Mexico of people to build their own community Essays on eds., The Mexico Rio de Janeiro 2011). “express kidnapped” is still subject to continuous blows that modules with the “super-adobe” technique Theory, Narrative Reader: History, (Berkeley: University in 1996. The taxi he and Nation in Culture, Politics of California Press, 27 boarded turned out have limited the capacity of its communities pioneered by Cooperación Comunitaria. This the Americas, ed. (Durham: Duke 1976). Rubén Martínez, to be the vehicle to adequately manage the social, cultural, technique, although it uses industrial materials Neil Larsen (London: University Press, The Other Side: for a joyride around Verso, 2001), 75–82. 2003), 536. On the 21 Notes from the the city as a couple economic, and environmental aspects of the (raffia and barbed wire), primarily employs culture of poverty Tom Barry, Mexico: New L.A., Mexico of pistol-wielding territories they inhabit. Poverty, environmental earth, a material used ancestrally throughout 13 the key figure A Country Guide City and Beyond characters forced him On the history and is Oscar Lewis; (Inter-Hemispheric (New York: Vintage, to hand over his ATM damage, cultural alienation, loss of productive the Mexican territory. Earth contributes to cultural politics of see, for example, Education Resource 1993); Daniel card and passcode. capacities, and depopulation are some of the a regulated thermal environment, and it Mexico’s golden age, Five Families: Center, 1992), 196. Hernández, Down After a fortunate see Gilbert Joseph, Mexican Case and Delirious in turn—one of the conditions in which millions of people build distinguishes itself from other construction Studies in Anne Rubenstein 22 Mexico City: The men interpreted their lives. As a response to the ravages caused materials by not producing CO2, allowing for and Eric Zolov, eds., the Culture of Ibid., 195. Aztec Metropolis the rejected card Fragments of Poverty (New in the Twenty to be evidence of a in rural Mexico by the political and economic the buildings to be more sustainable. It is also a Golden Age: York: Basic Books, 23 First Century problem with the model implemented over the past few decades, a building technique that is easy for anyone to The Politics 1975); on Lewis’s Rubén Gallo, The (New York: Scribner, card rather than the of Culture in influence in the US, Mexico City 2011); Lida, First fake passcode Lida Cooperación Comunitaria works to learn. Mexico Since see Karin Alejandra Reader (Madison: Stop in the New had given him—he improve the habitability of marginalized rural The goal of Cooperación Comunitaria 1940 (Durham: Duke Rosemblatt, University of World. On youth went home shaken University Press, “Other Americas: Wisconsin Press, and counterculture, but intact. Despite and indigenous communities through projects is to revalue and encourage local self- 2001). On the middle Transnationalism, 2004), 9 and 21. see Eric Zolov, his experience, that foster economic autonomy, social organ- construction techniques and technologies. classes, see Louise Scholarship and Refried Elvis: Lida makes a very Walker, Waking the Culture of 24 The Rise of important point: “The ization, and the self-production of sustainable By providing training and accompaniment, from the Dream: Poverty in Mexico On crónicas, see the Mexican great majority of and dignified living spaces. These efforts Cooperación Comunitaria enables Mexico’s Middle and the United ibid., 21; Fabrizio Counterculture people in Mexico City Classes After States,” Hispanic Mejía Madrid, (Berkeley: University not only haven’t been to better the living conditions are based on communities to enhance their building 1968 (Palo Alto: American “Insurgentes,” of California Press, kidnapped, but don’t the recovery of traditional knowledge geared capacities, contributing to their self-sufficiency Isadora Hastings and Gerson Huerta García Stanford University Historical Review in ibid., 55; José 1999). Martínez’s know anyone who Press, 2013). 89, no. 4 (2009): Joaquín Blanco, work is valuable too has been either,” he toward reconciling local populations with their and enhancing the quality of people’s homes. 603–641. For a bleak “Cuauhtémoc,” in for its range—he notes. Nevertheless, own territory. For instance, a community model designed for 14 vision of children ibid., 222; Vicente brings Mexico City a litany of self- See Elena on the margins in Leñero, “Zona Rosa, into dialogue with serving hysteria Cooperación Comunitaria’s working the Masehual and Totonaco peoples living Poniatowska, Mexico City, see 1965,” in ibid., 78; Los Angeles, Havana, regarding crime and methodology is based on fostering sustainable in the Sierra de Puebla, Northwest of the State Massacre in Luis Buñuel’s Los Monterrosso, “Maids San Salvador and Mexico City peppered Mexico, trans. Olvidados (The I,” in ibid., 249; Tijuana, among the pages of the development by using appropriate techniques, of Veracruz, was developed in part from an Helen Lane Forgotten). Jonathan Hernández, others cities. US publications in technologies, and construction materials analysis of the cultural uses of space, in order (Columbia: University “The University,” in the 1990s, much of Missouri Press, 19 ibid., 271–28. 28 of which was, Lida according to each specific area and culture. to understand how social relationships are 1991). See the brief José Joaquín Blanco, notes, “blatantly The purpose of Habitability is to stimulate shaped by their built environment. Adapting introduction to 25 “Plaza Satelite,” in irresponsible” and 15 Vallarino’s essay Daniela Rossell, Gallo, The Mexico contradicted by an array of self-management techniques that traditional forms as well as local materials and For an excellent by Joseph and Ricas y famosas City Reader, 104. statistics showing promote development, dignified housing, techniques, community modules are built by discussion, see Henderson in The (Madrid: Turner that Mexico City Judith Adler Hellman, Mexico Reader. Publicaciones, 2002). 29 wasn’t even in the and cultural diversity. Cooperación the users themselves, who are given training Mexican Lives See also the brief On street names see top 15 of the most Comunitaria has worked in marginalized and super-vision, and who assign the buildings (New York: The New 20 discussion in David Lida, First Stop, dangerous cities in Press, 1995). Hellman, Mexican Lida, First Stop in 7; on “jumbling” Latin America. The communities in different states throughout a use—either private or communitarian. Lives; on the myth the New World: see Gallo, The fact that writers Mexico (Veracruz, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Ultimately, these architectural solutions respond 16 of machismo, see Mexico City, the Mexico City have to invoke On settlement Matthew Gutmann, Capital of the Reader, 3. On early such statistics with and Chiapas), focusing on the recovery of local to the climatic, environmental, and cultural and size, see Colin The Meanings 21st Century (New post-revolutionary mantric regularity materials, the reassessment of traditional needs of the inhabitants, strengthening their MacLachlan and of Macho: York: Riverhead, architecture, see is just one more William Beezley, Being a Man 2008), 249–251. In Patrice Olsen, reminder of the construction techniques, and the training relationship to the territory in which they live.

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