TRANSMITTING URBAN MODELS AND THE CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE AS SEEN IN MEXICO CITY (2000-2006

José Ramón Xilotl Soberón

Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM)

72 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION

The expansion of the globalized world and the use of strategic planning in developing countries has led to an interest in the planning processes and theories of the developing world. In response to this interest, research into processes dealing with the conformation of space such as Rodgers (2004) and Brown and Bornstein’s (2006) work on Managua has emerged. Yet indigenous planning practices fail to explain large aspects of the cities we see today. North American-style suburbs, Parisian-style boulevards, and Modernist housing projects are ubiquitous throughout the developing world. How did they get there? Rather than form a greater theory for the spread of urban models and planning practices, I hope to advance a dialog for understanding the introduction and adoption of Western planning theory throughout the developing world. As an opening contribution, the objective of this work is to provide an overview of the development of urban mega projects2 in Mexico, in general, and Mexico City, in particular.

In dealing with such an expansive topic, clarity is of the utmost. As noted by Lungo (2004), the development of urban mega projects occurs in association with case-specifi c scenarios envisioned by strategic planning (estrategica or operacional in Spanish). This incites questions concerning the adequacy of exporting the mentioned strategies as well as whether an urban mega project can truly articulate a city. This article will therefore deal with each of two institutional models and the period of change from one to the other in order to explore how such projects are publicly marketed and how the above mentioned questions are answered. While both models are initially explained within the introduction, it is in the subheadings that the models are subsequently fl eshed out. In the case of the fi rst model, these deal with the pioneers of Mexican planning and their distinct political periods. For the second model, the particular projects that dealt with the confrontation of a political dogma, and their political reality, are discussed. It should be noted that this body of work is still in its infancy and greater analysis and theoretical detail will eventually spring from it.

INSTITUTIONAL MODELS FOR THE TRANSMISSION OF URBAN MODELS

This article seeks to show that the adoption of foreign urban models and the subsequent development of urban mega projects are entwined into a single process that has substantially changed in the last 25 years due to the changing relations between the urban planning professional, politicians, and businessmen. While these changes have in large part led to institutional innovation, the result has not always been positive or even desirable but instead merely a reaction to the times. This is not to say that these processes are set, since at least two variations exist for each, and it is crucial to understand

SOBERÓN 73

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

the evolution from one to another. It would, however, be erroneous to state that a clear diff erentiation exists between the gestation process of urban projects today and those of yesterday. By focusing on a description of the circumstances under which several historical Mexican urban mega projects were developed as well as the use of biography as an analytical tool, I hope to advance the following institutional models as the basis for the introduction and adoption of foreign urban theory and practices:

SOBERÓN

74 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

URBAN PROJECT

POLITICIAN

URBAN PROFESSIONAL

FOREIGN UNIVERSITY BUSINESSMAN URBAN PROJECT

BUSINESSMAN

POLITICIAN

URBAN PROFESSIONAL

FOREIGN EXAMPLE

1 ALLIANCE (1890S-1982) MODEL 2 BUSINESS (1982-TODAY) MODEL

In accordance, these institutional models denote a strong shift in the preeminence of the urban planning professional in favor of the businessman as a result of the changing relationship between them and their individual relationship to key politicians. This shift handicaps the urban planning professional by both slowing him down and also by reducing his power base in coming up with urban mega projects. In eff ect, he no longer holds a monopoly on knowledge unique to experts in urban design. It simultaneously increases the demands of the businessman over the politician as a result of his monetary resources replacing political will and mobilization as the key resource in the development of Mexican urban mega projects. These shifts are set against a backdrop of stagnating economic development that continues to serve as the primary motivation for the creation and implementation of all Mexican urban mega projects. Consequently the goals of each player and the logic to which he responds has in eff ect changed little, allowing the empowerment of that player best able to take advantage of externalities to the planning process.

As a brief explanation of this shift, the Alliance model was led by foreign-trained professionals who upon returning to Mexico dedicated themselves to promoting grand projects, like those they had experienced in Europe or North America, to the local authorities. This movement reached its peak in the 1940s when the planning professional started to double as a public offi cial or as a privileged advisor to government institutions. From this perch, an alliance between politicians and a small circle of contractors dedicated to the construction of public works formed quite eff ectively. In recent years due to the rollback in the scale of state intervention, the private sector’s role has grown in importance. Business moguls capable of molding government policy on urban development to their own interests have emerged as a power base. This situation is not exclusive to Mexico; other cities around the world have also seen a shift from a more or less centralized planning system to one of government institutions and private initiative working side-by-side to develop the grand urban projects that have come to defi ne urban planning over the last thirty years.

Putting the aforementioned changes aside, both state and private promoters have historically come to view Mexico’s mega projects as the political materialization of the country’s eff orts to modernize and develop. From this derives the importance of following the latest international trends in planning and urban design by a society whose elites have always admired other cultures from afar. Still, one can readily acknowledge the absence of a long-term city plan (or strategy) founded upon a coherent theory and public involvement. In its place, a succession of isolated projects conceived as business ventures paid for by public funds or more recently by private investment have become the norm. In the case of Mexico City’s outgoing administration, there exists a series of contradictions between what their political rhetoric promises (in terms of their overall scheme for the city) and the current practice of urban development. At the same time, one cannot ignore the importance of the self-gestation process which continues to give rise to a considerable portion of all contemporary Mexican cities.

FIRST STAGE: THE FORGING OF AN ALLIANCE

Beginning with an initial amassing of wealth and a desire for cities to showcase their citizens’ wealth in the 1890s, a heavy French infl uence drawing from Haussman’s treatment of Paris gave rise to the state’s position as a promoter of large-scale urban works3 . These projects promoted esthetics as the determining factor and were located exclusively in and for the use of ritzy neighborhoods4. In 1910, Porfi rio Diaz launched an ambitious program of urban renewal to mark the centennial of Mexico’s independence. The objective of this program was to modernize the country’s capital through the con-

SOBERÓN 75

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

76 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT struction of huge public buildings characterized by a revivalist architecture which ran the gamut from neogothic to neoaztec following the trend of the ‘Ecole de Beaux Arts’. Around this date the number of residential neighborhoods built for the elite multiplied. These neighborhoods heavily contrasted with the older squalid constructions and the irregular conditions of areas occupied by the nascent industrial proletariat. This phenomenon would continue throughout the 20th century.

Inevitably, the main externality aff ecting this period is the Mexican Revolution. As Juan Brom (1998) argues, a nationalist political program that reached its zenith in the 1940s heavily combated the lack of a national identity (seen as a key factor in creating the political instability leading up to the Revolution). While the resulting switch in political system from a dictatorship to a one-party system did imply a move to an economic policy of import substitution, it did not change the personal prerogative of politicians to use pork barrel politics to develop urban mega projects. In this sense neoliberals understandably argue that the creation of strong national industries whose growth is based on the protection of nascent industry naturally favors the economic growth of a national elite and the long-term economic stagnation of the country5. This shift and resulting economic decline is evidenced within the historical context of the Alliance model and the planners who followed from it, as discussed below.

THE PIONEERS OF URBAN PLANNING IN MEXICO

PORFIRIO DIAZ: 1890S-1910

Miguel Angel de Quevedo studied civil engineering in France where he came under the infl uence of Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier. In 1903 he took charge of the Offi ce of Parks of the City of Mexico where he conceived a series of projects founded on the principles of hygiene and social welfare attributed to city parks. Quevedo equally admired F.L. Olmsted’s designs for residential suburbs in Chicago and Boston. In comparison, José Luis Cuevas Pietrasanta, was a multifaceted architect interested in the initial ideas of Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City as a design solution. By the 1920s, he was well known as a designer of upscale neighborhoods such as Lomas de Chapultepec and Hipodromo Condesa on the edge of Mexico City. Both projects were signifi cant as the former became the fashionable place to live for the city’s affl uent class while the latter lent its open space and road design criteria to the fi rst construction safety manual the city enacted as law. As an academic, Cuevas went on to organize the fi rst course on urban planning at the San Carlos Academy (1926-1929). During this period European training was essential in gravitating to the parlors of the elite from where ad hoc urban

developments for the wealthy sprang. Equally the power of these men was limited to the power of the caudillo (warlord) of the day limiting the spread of planning theory outside Mexico City and its surroundings.

LAZARO CARDENAS: 1920S-1940S

Starting in 1921, the end of Mexico’s political instability, a new state structure began to come together. Suddenly development and progress became the apex of all political rhetoric, which favored the adoption and diff usion of the principals of regional planning through state institutions. The new rhetoric pushing for the creation of strong federal institutions with both a national and local presence6 follows on from the grievances of centralization and the lack of government presence in much of the country that marked the pre-revolutionary age. As such regional planning, a logical consequence, became embedded within each federal institution in opposition to the ad hoc nature of urban projects that had come before. A small group of American university graduates, of whom the architect Carlos Contreras of Columbia University was the most distinguished, took advantage of the country’s institutionalization in order to dominate Mexican urban planning. From 1925 onwards, he directed a campaign to divulge the social and economic advantages of both urban and regional planning to politicians, business leaders, and a new generation of Mexican professionals.

As an offi cial representative of Mexico at diverse congresses of the American Planning Association, Contreras became the principal promoter of American planning practices which conferred upon the car an almost primordial role. Through his eff orts zoning, as well as other American concoctions such as the greenbelt, the suburb, and the expressway found a home in Mexican planners’ lexicon. In 1932 he submitted Mexico City’s fi rst urban ordinance plan which he quickly followed with a national urban development plan. The peak of his career came under the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, an emblematic fi gure of Mexico’s left wing, whose presidency characterized a new nationalist spirit that heavily opposed the European infl uences as a comment on Diaz’s regime. In 1938, with Cárdenas behind him, Contreras held the 16th Congress on Planning and Housing in Mexico City. Arguably it is under Cardenas that the greatest level of institutional development and investment occurred. Yet, the political class was incapable of recognizing the need for urban development planning at a time when the demographic growth in the country began to boom. In the end, confronted with the vested interests of local political power brokers, these men’s visionary proposals were reduced to mere good intentions. Still, given the nature of heady days, who has time to plan when growth is considered the sole good7?

SOBERÓN 77

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

78 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT Carlos Contreras’ project came to life in 1947 with his proposal for the development of several river basins in a similar manner as had been accomplished with the Tennessee River. It may come as a surprise that the institutionalization of urban and regional planning in Mexico did not come about until the 1970s, when the combined forces of the urban problems had surpassed the public administration’s ability to gestate solutions. To be precise, the Human Settlement Law passed in 1976 simultaneously led to the creation of the federal department of the same name. This was in many ways due to the protagonist role played by Mexico’s then president during the Vancouver Reunion organized by the UN that same year.

Returning to Lázaro Cárdenas and the 1940s, one can see new infl uences in the form of political refugees arriving in Mexico in an eff ort to escape the totalitarianism of Spain and Germany. Among the political refugees, Hannes Meyer, dean of the Bauhaus from 1928 to 1930, stands out. Meyer found the opportunity to continue the pedagogic project he had initiated in Germany even if it had to incorporate the ideals behind the Mexican Revolution. Backed by the Mexican Union of Socialist Architects, Meyer proposed in 1939 to create a school of urban planning within the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). Although the idea received support from the government, it soon found opposition in the shape of the right-wing architects’ guild who didn’t like having a communist among their fellows. The school’s closure two years later shows the continuing infl uence of the insider pressure group in comparison to the social outsider of the times.

Following Cárdenas’ presidency, the offi cial state ideology rapidly shifted rightwards in order to closely coincide with the biggest fi nancial backer of the government’s economic development policy, the United States of America. The emblematic fi gure of this period is Mario Pani (1911-1993). The son of a prestigious engineer and Mexican ambassador to France, Pani was able to hear Le Corbusier exhibit his ideas on social housing and rationalist planning while attending the École de Beaux Arts, so continuing the trend of foreign-trained experts of high social standing who eventually returned to prominent government posts. Returning in the 1940s, Pani quickly signed on to construct huge social projects (mainly schools and hospitals) whose architecture came to symbolize the modernity promised to the masses by the politicians of the day.

MIGUEL ALEMÁN: 1950S-1960S

During the presidency of Miguel Alemán (1946-52), Mario Pani served as the offi cial architect for the regime. In 1947, he built the nation’s fi rst housing project for the Union of Social Security Workers (showing the infl uence of labor unions during the times). The

country was in a time of economic boom and public funds were plentiful. 1954 found Pani and his associates heading the Ciudad Universitaria (University City) project, considered among the best-realized examples of modern architecture in Mexico. Other relevant works include the construction of the Tlatelolco housing project and the plan for Ciudad Satélite (Satellite City, the paradigm of Mexican residential suburbs which tried to sell the American way of life). Pani is instrumental not in terms of understanding economic development but in terms of understanding Mexican thoughts on modernity and economic progress. The curators of style in many ways held on to their base of power for so long precisely because of this ability to sell ‘progress’. It is equally interesting to note the changes in the type of mega projects, which by this time were clearly geared towards corporate groups rather than city populations or economic progress as a whole.

All of the aforementioned projects have clearly shown signs of an alliance between the private and public sector. This is particularly true in the case of the construction fi rm Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA) founded by Bernardo Quintana, an old school-mate of the then president and a colleague of Mario Pani. ICA would go on to win practically every major public work over the next few presidencies. Pani’s successor as the architect for the regime was Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, the designer of many emblematic buildings with a reference to contemporary Mexican culture. His work includes the National Anthropology Museum and the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In a political role, he also served as the president of the 1968 Olympic Games Organizing Committee, for which many urban projects were built that grace Mexico City to this day. Of note is the construction of the fi rst subway lines in Mexico City around this year by ICA. Although French fi rms served as consultants throughout the project, the specifi c conditions of Mexico City’s subsoil favored the development of new construction techniques and technology by local fi rms that would later employ this knowledge throughout Latin America. It is at this stage that the institutionalization of the planning process was complete. By strengthening the position of key economic and professional players, politicians ensured their own dominance of the planning process. This gave them the ability to grant privileges to the urban masses and handle huge amounts of public funds. It is similar to the relationship highlighted by Bardhan (1984) in India where the political strength favored industry and then eventually lost control as the interests of these industries outgrew the possibilities of the home market.

CARLOS HANK: 1970S

This era of mega projects brought about through an alliance of political and private entrepreneurial power saw a brief but memorable heyday under the regency8 of Carlos

SOBERÓN 79

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

80 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT Hank (1976-1982), who was able to take advantage of city politics and the newly generated petrodollars in order to undertake an ambitious urban project that integrated transport, road works, and basic infrastructure. Before taking offi ce as regent of Mexico City, Carlos Hank was best known as an infl uential promoter of urban mega projects within his home state The best examples would be Cuatitlan Izcalli, a successful industrial city heavily inspired by the new towns built in Europe in the early 1970s. Having said this, the political regime was heavily marred by corruption and abuse of power scandals throughout its stay in power. Excesses were especially rampant given Hank’s role as an urban planning professional, businessman, and politician giving him full leeway for the development and repartition of public projects. This is notoriously seen through his nearly single-handed planning, construction, and populating of Nezahualcoyotl City9 . Unpopular throughout the city for the direct impact that his schemes had (in particular the expropriation of land for the creation of grid-like high-speed one-way streets—Ejes Viales), Hank was eff ectively the last of Mexico City’s true strongmen. In his fi nal years in offi ce, Hank became bogged down by both the 1982 banking crisis on one hand and the forced integration of citizen’s committees in the planning process, both of which limited his ability to operate as a politician.

Looking back, the Alliance Model relied on the ability of an urban professional to keep the channels of communication open with the political class. Politicians would then resort to propping up businessmen who later built the project and provided a cover for corruption. These projects were highly refl ective of the existing political discourse and largely based on foreign theories. Eventually the politicians’ desire to control the process led them into assuming all three roles, thus endangering the role of the urban planner and straining their own relationship with the newly minted industrial elite.

THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW BUSINESS MODEL

ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING: A REALITY

The 1982 economic crisis marked the end of the interventionist state and the adoption of liberal economic principles quickly took hold. This was mainly through the eff orts of the very controversial fi gure, Carlos Salinas (a Harvard economist) during his time as budget secretary and later as president (1988-1994). In that same year, the banking sector was nationalized which was looked upon by the private sector as a betrayal. Another factor came in the form of the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake which showed evidence of the government’s incapacity to deal with the needs resulting from the event, let alone the accumulated social needs of the populace. This new understanding

fortifi ed the leftist-populist political opposition parties. During Salinas’ presidency, the territorial planning system put in place in 1976 was eff ectively dismantled, citing as the reason the system’s failure to alleviate regional inequalities and control urban growth. A new federal agency was put in charge of an ambitious program of public works (grouped together as the Programa Solidaridad or Solidarity Program) partially funded by the federal government and partially funded by the aff ected population (under technical supervision). This program went as far as to invoke the ancient practice of the work collective (still common in rural areas). This program constituted the body of the entire social policy under Salinas’ neoliberal regime. This economic conservatism, far from being original, strictly adhered to the criteria of the Inter-American Development Bank.

Even with this turn in economic policy, a series of major works developed under Salinas harked back to those of previous administrations. With the reduction in state building funds, came the beginnings of a move towards an outlook of such urban projects as business ventures. In the early 1990s, Mexico City’s government decided to transform what was then a municipal landfi ll into a world-class business district that would enable the city to reposition itself within the global urban hierarchy. The business district of Santa Fe has curiously come to symbolize this stage in urban projects, as well as to become the last example of a state-fi nanced intervention. The project was conceived within Mexico City’s government by a former alumnus of an English university who based it on London’s Docklands redevelopment project. On a diff erent scale lies the National Center for the Arts (1994), which comprises a collection of buildings designed by the leading Mexican architects of the time. In this manner, several projects show similarities with Mitterrand’s Paris. Consider, for instance, the National Library under construction which is located on top of the city’s old train station and was fi nanced by the present federal government in an eff ort to compensate for a perceived lack of investment in culture.

In reality, while neoliberals decry the Mexican banking crisis of 1982 as a result of the protectionist economic policies of the previous 40 years10 , Susan George (1988) takes a diff erent view, basically blaming the geopolitical interests in free trade, capital fl ight, corruption, and excess investment capacity for the crisis. By forcibly employing solutions of ‘free trade’, government thrift, economic specialization, etc., espoused by the International Monetary Fund, George states that the banking crisis only served to further changes to the Mexican planning process, thus killing the Alliance Institutional Model.

SOBERÓN 81

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

82 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

CROSS-PARTY INTER-LEVEL GOVERNANCE: A FAILURE

During the government of Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000), the last Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) president before the arrival of Vicente Fox and the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN)11 party, no mega urban projects were conceived due to the dire economic crisis of 1994. Interestingly, 1997 marked the fi rst occasion that the citizens of Mexico City (the Federal District or D.F.) were allowed to vote for a Mayor. This election was won by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of Lázaro and founding father of the leftist-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD. On the national stage, the preceding few years were marred by the three main political parties bickering from their separate strongholds within the executive, legislature, and the media (eff ectively used by the Mayor of Mexico City). This had eff ectively blocked any decision from being taken at a metropolitan level. For instance, a projected new city airport never managed to be implemented due to the squabbling between the PRD-backed landowners, the PRI government of the State of Mexico12 , and the PAN national government13 .

This chain of events signaled the death of the previous model. The perceived betrayal by the state coupled with its inability to go it alone indicated to the private sector that the state had failed them as a partner, thus resulting in the end of the alliance. While Salinas and Fox tried to reestablish the previous agreement; the airport’s failure on political grounds proved once and for all that business moguls would have to do things themselves14. This can be seen as an extension to the privatization of key government industries under Salinas and Zedillo.

FEDERAL HOUSING: A SUCCESS

The best example of the federal government’s relinquishment of direction is the creation of new homes. Historically a nation of renters15, the last 12 years have seen a huge jump in the creation and acquisition of new homes by the Mexican lower middle class. Here we fi nd a variation of the Business model. While the fl edgling building industry was largely in the hands of former government cronies thanks to the large government contracts they initially received, the ability of these companies to churn out 10,000 peri-urban units throughout Mexico shows the ability of private interests to dictate urban expansion. Lately, the federal policy has focused on regulating these companies into SOFOLs (building societies) based upon the transference of funds from a national workers housing fund (INFONAVIT) to the SOFOLs in exchange for mortgaged homes for workers (underwritten by the federal government, of course). This particular scheme has quickly taken over resources previously heaped upon other programs favoring selfconstructed homes and government-built homes. While the caveat remains that this

program helps almost no one outside the salary group of 2.5 to 5 times minimum wage (95 to 190 pesos or about US$8.75-US$17.50 per day), the government’s intention to become nothing more than a facilitator in the creation of urban mega projects as well as social interest programs is quite clear. A live example of this is the program Alianza para la Vivienda, the Alliance for Housing, which is a forum for discussion between government agencies, banks, and developers, and has eff ectively replaced previous housing forums made up of government, business, and labor16 .

THE BUSINESS MODEL AND MEXICO CITY: 2000-2006

LOPEZ OBRADOR AND THE ASCRIBED DOGMA

The 2001 Mexico City Mayoral election marked the second consecutive electoral victory for the (broadly speaking) leftist PRD (Democratic Revolutionary Party) and the coming to power of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. This is a man who for the preceding twenty years had been spouting corruption charges against rival parties, staged protests that captured the national headlines, widely published utopian visions of social justice, and in many ways engineered the rise of the PRD throughout the late 1990s. Finally he was given a chance to implement the changes or ‘cambios’ that had been promised for so long. Looking back on six years of what has been a very active government, in terms of large-scale urban projects, one wonders where all these projects came from?

PUBLIC WORKS

2nd Floor of the Outer Ring Road: While this has by far been the most visible and controversial project undertaken by the city throughout this administration, it oddly enough managed to escape the attention of the media up to June 2001. Anonymous sources specify that the idea for this project originated in the late fi fties when the ring road was fi rst built. Developed by engineers within ICA (the contractor that built the ring road), the project shows strong similarities to the urban highways built in Los Angeles at the time. After the fall of the company, the engineers started to promote the 2nd fl oor to successive city governments through ‘informal’ channels until Lopez Obrador’s administration picked up on the idea and decided to follow through on it. Sources within SETRAVI (the city’s department of transport) admit that while the project predates the current administration, the idea is only ten years old and forms part of the Transport and Roadworks Master Plan (submitted to the city council at the start of the new administration).

Reforma Avenue: Public works dedicated to bettering the image of Mexico City’s most

SOBERÓN 83

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

84 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT famous avenue have had mixed reviews; for one, they have enticed some corporations to set up business along this street, yet others feel that the city missed a chance to make some money by charging these corporations for the betterment of the streets. While the ties between Lopez Obrador’s government and big business have been widely publicized and date back to his candidacy (La Jornada 6/1/00), the Mayor’s offi ce discredits claims that corporations such as TELMEX had anything to do with the project and instead mention that the project originated within the administration.

Metrobus: Although transport projects of this kind exist in Curitiba and Bogotá, it is important to mention that those projects, far from being transport projects, were modes of raising and then skimming property values by the cities in which they were built. Being strictly a transport project, the Metrobus has more to do with similar projects in León and Puebla (both in Mexico) where a bus line runs all along a main road stopping only at predetermined locations and taking up the inside traffi c lane. Sources at SETRAVI say that the direct precursor of this project can be found in similar schemes developed during the government of Hank Gonzalez in the 1970s. What makes this project truly meaningful is its strategy to incorporate the local corporative pressure groups that operate the peseros (old rickety 80-passenger buses) into the operations of this new mode of public transport. In this manner, the project maintains the tradition of old electoral strategies such as granting favors to the leaders of corporative groups in exchange for future votes. All of the Metrobus drivers came from the displaced pesero routes which were not disbanded, but instead altered to occupy an avenue running parallel to the one now reserved for the Metrobus.

SOCIAL POLICY

This area has been the one most closely linked to Lopez Obrador as an individual, and to his party; something refl ected in his campaign promises. In particular, his social policies included allowing a plebiscite every two years on his administration, empowering neighborhood comities, giving free public services to the handicapped and old age pensioners (70 years and above), and the creation of a new public city university and a public high school in each of the city’s boroughs or delegaciones (La Jornada 5/7/00). He based these proposals on the concept of universal rights (La Jornada 4/12/00) very much in line with his party’s political doctrine, such that, for example, the city controlled public high schools (La Jornada 4/1/00). Big business has also joined the fold, paying Rudolph Giuliani from the US to off er advice on the security situation within the city, to give an example.

URBAN PROJECTS

Densifi cation of the Urban Core (Bando 2) : Lopez Obrador and his closest advisors developed this project concept to such an extent that it was written into his administration’s charter or Bando. It was meant to allow for the creation of 50,000 homes (as specifi ed in his campaign promises) with assured basic services and to stop the physical expansion of the city (which was harming the ecosystem). Yet, land price speculation resulted in the project becoming economically unviable. A consequence of this has been the fl ooding of the upper and middle tier of the housing market, within the urban core, by developers (who tend to have strong links with Lopez Obrador’s PRD party), with the exception of a few projects developed by the Instituto de Vivienda del D.F. (INVI), the city’s public housing arm). In comparison, most of the new low-cost housing developments have been located in the outlying counties of the metropolitan area.

Refurbishment of the Historic Center: The physical and social degradation of the heart of Mexico City has come to the attention of successive governments over the last forty years. This is due to recent governments’ offi cial position on the Historic Center as the physical manifestation of the Mexican identity. Among the schemes to rehabilitate the area, the 1980 declaration of the Historic Center as a national landmark (under the protection of federal patrimony laws), its 1987 declaration as a World Heritage Site, and the creation of a standing committee for the Historic Center in 1990 stand out. The government has been charged with administrating all resources derived from a city program designed to transfer the building potential of the Historic Center to other outlying areas. Since then, the brunt of refurbishing eff orts have been concentrated in that part of the Historic Center best connected to the business districts lying west of the area. This has resulted in the continuing deterioration of the low-class neighborhoods which make up most of this World Heritage Site as funds are continuously tied up elsewhere within the site.

CARLOS SLIM AND MEXICO CITY

Although this is not the fi rst eff ort to refurbish the Historic Center, the main diff erences between earlier eff orts and those under the successive PRD administrations has been the involvement of Big Business in the urban renewal (Reforma 14/1/01). To exemplify, consider a proposal by Carlos Slim, the world’s third richest man according to Forbes magazine , for a new luxury offi ce district around the Alameda Central in Mexico City. His interest can be seen to lie in the fact that Mexico City, far from being an effi cient city, has still managed to garner a position on the second tier of the world-wide capital distribution hierarchy, with infl uence over all of Latin America. Yet with competition

SOBERÓN 85

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

86 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT coming from Miami, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires, Mexico City needs an edge. This edge has been the city’s Historic Center, the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, as it off ers the stakeholder an attraction that is unmatched by the competition and thus a major reason to invest in the city.

Slim is both a life-long Mexico City resident born and raised in the Historic Center and the head of a consortium with banking, building, and telecommunications interests throughout the Americas. With this background, he understands how the Historic Center works, how corporate investors think, and if anything, he has made a career out of knowing when something is being sold cheap. The Mayor’s need for both cash and connections has forced him to off er Slim a place at the helm of the Board overseeing the renewal of the Historic Center, an endeavor being paid for in part by the city. Slim has even been applauded for buying many of the buildings previously owned by the city at rock-bottom prices ! Through Grupo Carso (Slim’s real estate brand) he is focused on restoring the historic construction (with most prospects executed by his foreign-trained architect son-in-law) and rehabilitating them as luxury housing.

In comparing the Alliance Model with the Business Model, the latter has led to the start up of a greater number of projects and in less time than before. At the same time, we are seeing a greater divergence from any sort of government discourse on urban theory. Government offi cials have seemingly given up a great deal of self confi dence in their abilities to conceive and plan projects, preferring to instead reconcile an idea for a project with the greater economic interests behind it. This has in a way legitimized the position of the businessman as the principal force behind urban mega projects, almost entirely leaving out the urban planner in his role as a visionary.

CONCLUSIONS

In my opinion, the present Business Institutional Model is a result of changes in the historical, political, and sociological structures within the country. These changes, which came about with the death of the old institutional structures, were both unavoidable and yet caught a large part of the populace unawares. Traditional pressure groups have been replaced by much stronger and (in many ways) more visionary elite business groups that have decided to tie their companies’ prestige to those of the city’s. Slim is the main example in this trend of homegrown urban promoters, popular heroes, and businessmen currently becoming prevalent in the main cities of Mexico, who seem to have copied the North American model of fashioning a real-estate business around a mega project. These economic city guardians have mostly grown as a result of the

economic and political structural changes that weakened the position of the political class over the last 25 years.

With the structural changes serving as the motive and opportunity behind the second model, the means of achieving it is another story. Recapping from the main text, the urban planning professional has lost his role as the continuing source of ideas for new urban projects due to the internationalization of Mexican politicians and businessmen. This has resulted in a haphazard but much quicker process of proposing projects, based less and less on urban theory and increasingly more on the perceived benefi ts of projects in other cities. Politicians take these proposals and sell them to the businessmen; this is due to the former’s lack of resources and perceived lack of power. The businessmen still require the politicians due to their control of government land, building permits, and to serve as public spokesmen for the projects. All in all, the businessman makes a tidy profi t, the politician furthers his career, and the populace gets to live in an awe-inspiring age of rapid change.

These conditions are accepted by both, the right-wing Federal government and the left-wing Mexico City government. This acceptance of the political and economic externalities dictating the balance of power between diff erent players involved in the planning process shows that the Business model now in eff ect is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, especially not through the political dichotomy pervasive in Latin American politics. While it may appear that institutional innovations have been brought about exclusively by externalities aff ecting Mexico’s political reality, in terms of the original aims, the local need and understanding of urban mega projects has changed little since the time of the Mexican Revolution. Instead it is the context and process through which these projects emerge and the choice of emerging projects that has changed greatly. Changes in political and economic signifi cance stemming from the development of mortgaged homes instead of public parks or planning for airports over irrigation schemes cannot be underestimated. It is in this change of values by which these mega projects are judged and instituted that the greatest change in the theory and planning process behind urban mega projects occurred. Obvious as it may seem, Mexico’s experience is that given preeminence, neither urban planning professionals, politicians, nor businessmen alone create urban mega projects for the general public good or in accordance to its reality. The solution might lie not in placing initial eff orts on what project to build but on the institutional process by which to build it.

SOBERÓN 87

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

88 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

ENDNOTES

1 Based on the article ‘Continuidad y contradicciones en la transmisión de modelos para la práctica del urbanismo. El caso de la ciudad de México (2000-2006)’ by Jose Xilotl (zambini237@hotmail.com) and Hector Quiroz (uweq@yahoo.com) published in Quivera magazine Spring 2006.

2 “[government developed] large-scale physical facilities’’ as defi ned by Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff in The Changing Politics of Urban Mega-Projects in Land Lines Newsletter October 2003, Volume 15, Number 4

3 For example, the Cuahtemoc and Juarez neighborhoods around Paseo de la Reforma.

4 Leading to neighborhood and racial segregation similar to that found in 19th century India (see Drakakis-Smith’s Third World Cities)

5 Little, Ian, Industry and Trade in Some Developing Countries (1970)

6 Examples include IMSS (the public health service institute) and SEP (the institute for public education)

7 An early indicator of diff erences within a Brown agenda and a Green agenda of growth.

8 The Regent was the head of the Distrito Federal (Federal District) Department which answered directly to the President until 1997 when Mayoral elections took place for the fi rst time. In practice, the Regent carried out the same functions that the Mayor does today.

9 Built entirely on a dried lake-bed, by law a federal government holding.

10 Most notably Miguel de la Madrid, President at the time, by fi ring Jesus Silva-Herzog, the Finance Minister of the day and then implementing Herzog’s plan. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Party of the Institutionalized Revolution or PRI) was founded by the surviving leaders of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) and managed to stay in power between 1928 and 2000. The longevity of its reign is due to the adaptability of its ideology towards new political and international economic events. In this manner it has come to uphold socialism, populism, and economic liberalism without skipping a beat.

11 The Partido Acción Nacional (Party for Nacional Action or PAN) originally was an umbrella group of conservatives who opposed the social reforms implemented by Lázaro Cárdenas. It would later transform itself into a party for middle-class shopkeepers critical of the rampant corruption within the government.

12 The state neighboring the Federal District.

13 See http://www.prodigyweb.net.mx/laboetie/cronoatenco.html for a full time-line of the project’s demise.

14 In this way the role of the state was reduced in practice to that of maintaining a healthy macroeconomic climate. Today, as seen with the reforms to the Energy policy, this has become a dogmatic condition as well.

15 Since the colonialist era and the hacienda system, in which the peasant was essentially a sharecropper.

16 For a fuller explanation see Ramírez, Víctor. Notas para la Periodización de la Política Habitacional del Estado Mexicano: 1917-2004 (Unpublished) or SEDESOL, Financiamiento para Vivienda en México. Ed. SEDESOL, México, 1999.

17 Secretaria de Transportes y Vialidad.

18 For an overview of the private sector’s response, see: Medina, Luis. “Crecimiento de Vivienda Residencial y Residencial Plus en la Ciudad de México” in Inmobiliare Magazine, Mexico, year 7, Number 37, September 2006, pp. 122-124.

19 As of March 3rd 2007, see “Slim’s Chance” by Helen Coster at www.forbes.com

20 In private conversation stemming from the author’s experience, it is common to hear the middle classes praising Slim’s eff orts to make the area a ‘safe’ place to visit again whilst lower classes praise the way a non-politician is ‘sticking it to the man’. This guttural reaction is countered by the common theory that he’s Carlos Salinas’ errand boy.

REFERENCES

Altshuler, Alan and Luberoff , David. The Changing Politics of Urban Mega-Projects in Land Lines Newsletter. Volume 15, Number 4. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, October, 2003.

Balderas, Erick. “Los vecinos del piso dos” in Chilango, year 2, No. 19, May 2005, pp. 53-57.

Bardhan, Pranab. The Political Economy of Development in India. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1984.

Brom, Juan. Esbozo de Historia de México. Mexico, Grijalbo Mondadori, 1998.

Brown and Bornstein, Lisa. Whither Managua? Evolution of a City’s Morphology. 42nd ISoCaRP Congress 2006.

Consuegra, Renato. “Arrasa con todo el metrobús” in Vertigo, México, year 1, 2005, pp. 34-37.

Garay, Graciela de. Mario Pani. Vida y obra. México, UNAM, 2004.

George, Susan. A Fate Worse Than Debt. New York, Grove Press, 1988.

Little, I.M.D. Industry and Trade in some Developing Countries. Oxford University Press. 1970.

Lungo, Mario. Grandes Proyectos Urbanos. El Salvador, Ed. UCA, 2004.

Peralta, Leonardo. “De Colombia para Insurgentes” in Chilango, México, year 2, No. 19, May 2005, pp. 47-49.

SOBERÓN

89

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

SOBERÓN

90 PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT Quiroz, Hector and Xilotl, Jose. Continuidad y contradicciones en la transmisión de modelos para la práctica del urbanismo. El caso de la ciudad de México (2000-2006) in Quivera. Spring 2006.

Ramírez, Víctor. Notas para la Periodización de la Política Habitacional del Estado Mexicano: 1917-2004. Unpublished. 2004

Reyes, Gerardo. Los Dueños de América Latina. México, Ediciones B, 2003, pp. 7-37.

Rivadeneyra, Patricia. Hannes Meyer. Vida y obras. México, UNAM, 2004, 79 p.

Rodgers, D. Disembedding the city: crime, insecurity and spatial organization in Managua, Nicaragua in Environment & Urbanization 16:113-124. 2004.

Sánchez Ruiz, Gerardo (coord.) Planifi cación y urbanismo visionarios de Carlos Contreras, escritos de 1925 a 1938. México UNAM, UAM, 2003, 149 p.

SEDESOL. Financiamiento para Vivienda en México. México , Ed. SEDESOL, 1999.

Various. Nueva Ley Federal del Trabajo, Tematizada y Sistematizada. México, Ed. Trillas, 1986.

NEWSPAPERS

La Jornada, México, 2/1/00 –18/1/00, 5/7/00-19/7/00, 1/12/00-5/12/00 Reforma, México, 14/1/01-24/1/01

WEBSITES

Information on Carlos Slim: Pardo Gaston. “El magnate Carlos Slim juega al demócrata. El dueño de Teléfonos de México se apodera del centro histórico de la capital” in http://www.redvoltaire.net/article645.html

Caballero, María Cristina in http://www.laprensagrafi ca.com/elfi nanciero/elfi nanciero22.asp

Coster, Helen. “Slim’s Chance” in http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0326/134.html?boxes=custom http://www.revistapoder.com/NR/exeres/627FE7AD-DA54-4952-936E-80EB77F27BAE.htm

http://www.telmex.com/explorer/esto/esto_prensa_comun_comu24_2004.html

http://www.go2mexicocity.com/?page=articles/historic_center.php

Metrobus site: http://www.fi mevic.df.gob.mx/metrobus/antecedentes.htm

SOBERÓN 91

PROJECTIONS 7 INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT