Mexico City Mobilities: The People, Politics, and Pathways That Built a Metropolis (Diálogos Series)

An essential resource for students and scholars of Latin American history, urban studies, and the history of mobility and transport. Mexico City Mobilities is the first comprehensive study to place regional mobility and transportation infrastructure at the center of the Mexican capital’s two-hundred-year history.Beginning in 1824, when a fledgling national capital began to define its political and territorial identity, historian Michael K.Bess traces the evolution of “mobility politics”-the deeply contested negotiations between state authorities, technical experts, and everyday citizens over the right-of-way and built and natural environments.Moving beyond traditional urban histories, he explores how the Federal District functioned as a showcase for technocratic visions of progress through its transportation-infrastructure systems and policies. Bess examines the shift from nineteenth-century animal-drawn trams to the massive twentieth-century megaprojects that sought to “tame” the city