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WI: A new capital city for Mexico

H

Hendryk

Taken back control yet?
Published by SLP
Location
France
A number of developing countries have moved their capital, often building a new city from scratch for that purpose. The most famous example is Brazil, but one might also mention Ivory Coast, Myanmar and soon Indonesia. Now Mexico City suffers from a number of issues that could justify moving the seat of the Mexican federal government to a new location, such as seismic instability, groundwater depletion, pollution and ground subsidence. When, at any time after independence, might the country have decided to move its capital, and what location would have made the most sense?
 
Max Sinister said:
Mexico city has many disadvantages, but also two big advantages: a) it's traditionally the capital and b) it's very central. Neither a capital closer to the US nor one too far from it seems a good idea, somehow...
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The new capital could be in the same general vicinity of the old one, and Cuernevaca, for example, seems to have fewer environmental issues than Mexico City.
 
Mexico City is located at a geopolitical sweet spot for the area. It's on the Mexican Plateau and is located in a valley that makes it easier to develop land than in other places in very-mountainous Mexico.

Cuernevaca been served as a sort of elite escape from Mexico City. It would be bad optics to move the capital there, and I also doubt the elites would want to center things in an area which serves as their nice escape from the masses.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
Cuernevaca been served as a sort of elite escape from Mexico City. It would be bad optics to move the capital there, and I also doubt the elites would want to center things in an area which serves as their nice escape from the masses.
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Some would say that's a good reason for moving the capital in the first place. One key selling point of Versailles, for example, was that it was away from the unruly mob.

Now maybe some of Mexico City's environmental issues might not be quite as bad if the Spanish had not drained the lake that provided the place with water for its people and its crops, but the problems of geological instability and high altitude would still be there.
 
I think if the government ended up moving the capital to Cuernevaca it would just be the Putrajaya or Sri Jayawardenepure Kotte of Mexico- yes all the government offices are there, but it's basically just seen as a suburb of the larger city.

I genuinely don't think it would significant reduce the growth or development of Mexico City at all- after all Brasilia hardly prevented the favelas of Rio.

EDIT: Thinking about it, the most successful planned capital moves- Washington DC and St. Petersburg- ended up being overshadowed by Baltimore until the 20th Century, and succeeding in becoming the largest city by dint of also being the only major port on Baltic for a great many years respectively.

So really if you want to prevent Mexico City sprawling like it did, you really need to create some mechanism to actively prevent people from wanting to move there rather than just not have it be the capital.
 
Alex Richards said:
So really if you want to prevent Mexico City sprawling like it did
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Why hot reorient the question then? Alter the trajectory of Mexican development to 1) create additional economic centers that provide alternative migration destinations so Mexico City is "only as dominant as NYC or LA is and 2) change Mexican land use and urban policy/regulation to aggressively tackle sprawl (and I guess air pollution/housing quality?) as a problem in more or or less the way it was done in other industrialized countries?
 
Alex Richards said:
Washington DC...ended up being overshadowed by Baltimore until the 20th Century
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Nowadays there are insane people who live here but commute to the District. My stepmom used to be one!
I can only carry on clutching to the belief that one day justice will be restored to the universe and Charm City shall reclaim its glory from not only DC but also the countless solar-fascist sprawlopolises (Phoenix, San Antonio) that knocked it off the top ten in the aeon of Reagan's Gomorrah.
 
frittering said:
Nowadays there are insane people who live here but commute to the District. My stepmom used to be one!
I can only carry on clutching to the belief that one day justice will be restored to the universe and Charm City shall reclaim its glory from not only DC but also the countless solar-fascist sprawlopolises (Phoenix, San Antonio) that knocked it off the top ten in the aeon of Reagan's Gomorrah.
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IDK if it's insane, MARC is about a half-hour from Baltimore to Union Station so it doesn't seem too hard to get a commute that's about 45 min/hour going and a pretty easy trip into DC for Occasional Fun Stuff, which is rather better than quite a few MoCo suburban commutes. Add in the fact that you can get a very nice place in say Mt. Vernon Square or wherever for well under what the same place would cost in DC and there's maybe less going on in Baltimore than DC but still quite a bit and it seems like a pretty good deal. Like I've thought about it even.
 
Roger II said:
Why hot reorient the question then? Alter the trajectory of Mexican development to 1) create additional economic centers that provide alternative migration destinations so Mexico City is "only as dominant as NYC or LA is and 2) change Mexican land use and urban policy/regulation to aggressively tackle sprawl (and I guess air pollution/housing quality?) as a problem in more or or less the way it was done in other industrialized countries?
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I mean essentially the latter is purely one of timing.

London didn't have air quality rules until the Great Smog forced people to legislate for them. Los Angeles had horrific smog in the 1970s and it took things getting that bad for new air quality laws to be introduced there.

Mexico City became the most polluted city on the planet in 1992 as the effects of cars in a lower-oxygen environment made things significantly worse than Los Angeles ever was, and from 1990 there have been significant reductions in air quality there as well.

Essentially if you want earlier environmental controls you basically need to have earlier industrialisation so things become worse earlier and people react earlier.

That or have electric cars take off early enough to prevent things.

As for a more polycentric Mexico, not sure- my gut instinct is you basically need a wealthier more stable Mexico- and it doesn't help her biggest coal deposits are near the Rio Grande.
 
Alex Richards said:
Essentially if you want earlier environmental controls you basically need to have earlier industrialisation so things become worse earlier and people react earlier.

That or have electric cars take off early enough to prevent things.
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Yea, this tracks-I will say that one effect of earlier industrialization might be higher wealth overall, which could do some useful things both for environmental issues to be a priority and for 1) earlier serious investment in mass transit that could make a major dent in car use and 2) more wealth for people to buy newer cars with more up-to-date catalytic converters.
 
Roger II said:
I wonder if there's also a way to not get the lakes drained and/or maintain the hydrology of Mexico City. William Mulholland gets a few different shipping jobs than OTL and winds up in Mexico City? That would be a fun story at least...
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Seems the basic problem was the dykes that had prevented flooding Tenochtitlan weren't maintained and agricultural practices elsewhere meant the new floods were worse, so after Mexico City went underwater for five years in the early 17th Century they decided to create some huge near drainage channels.

Incidentally, that's probably your best bet for a completely different capital- they just relocate to Veracruz and abandon the place.
 
Alex Richards said:
Seems the basic problem was the dykes that had prevented flooding Tenochtitlan weren't maintained and agricultural practices elsewhere meant the new floods were worse, so after Mexico City went underwater for five years in the early 17th Century they decided to create some huge near drainage channels.

Incidentally, that's probably your best bet for a completely different capital- they just relocate to Veracruz and abandon the place.
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I wonder if there's an alternate universe where they do that, then someone steps up and maintains the dykes so it doesn't get Totally Abandoned, and in 400 years Veracruz is the big thriving metropolis and Mexico City/Tenochitlan is like a cute old-timey tourist trap for history nerds, like Annapolis or Savannah or Salem
 
Roger II said:
IDK if it's insane, MARC is about a half-hour from Baltimore to Union Station so it doesn't seem too hard to get a commute that's about 45 min/hour going and a pretty easy trip into DC for Occasional Fun Stuff, which is rather better than quite a few MoCo suburban commutes. Add in the fact that you can get a very nice place in say Mt. Vernon Square or wherever for well under what the same place would cost in DC and there's maybe less going on in Baltimore than DC but still quite a bit and it seems like a pretty good deal. Like I've thought about it even.
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traitor, heretic even

(i say this as a proud resident of mt vernon)
 
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