Urbanistas, ambulantes and mendigos: the dispute for urban space in Mexico City, 1890-1930

Abstract

Our views of Porfirian Mexico City are heavily influenced by the grandeur of the buildings and avenues and the elegance of colonias bu ilt during that periodo It is easy to share the nostalgia for los tiempos de don Porfirio, when Mexican society seemed as peaceful and well -organized as the walkways under the shady trees of the Paseo de la Reforma and the Alameda . This essay, however, contends that such images of civil ization were only the precarious result of a negotiation between the regime's projects of urban modernization and the everyday pradices of the majority of the urban population.