Mexico City: Our common future?

Abstract

This paper describes Mexico City's environmental problems, how and why they arose, and how they have changed over the last ten years. This includes an interest in how the problems have been affected by environmental policies and demographic structures. It highlights how some environmental problems are simply characteristics of large cities while others can only be understood in relation to specific economic, political and geographic factors. It discusses what constrains the cheapest and most effective solutions - for instance the lack of an integrated public transport policy and measures to promote energy and water conservation. The constraints include complex and often deep-rooted political and administrative factors - for instance the lack of funding available to the municipalities which house a large and growing proportion of the low income population and the powerful vested interests which benefit from the lack of an integrated transport policy. The paper also shows up the inaccuracies in much of the general literature when referring to Mexico City - for instance the exaggerations as to its population and size and the assumption that much reduced population growth rates would necessarily bring improved environmental conditions.