Tali Hatuka: In your book Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the twentieth century you ask why has Mexico City, once known as the city of palaces, turned into a sea of people, poverty, and pollution. Through historical analysis of Mexico City, you identify political actors responsible for the uncontrolled industrialization of Mexico's economic and social center, its capital city. You demonstrate how and why local politics can run counter to national politics, yet become enmeshed, spawning ineffective policies that are detrimental to the city and the nation. You call for recognizing the distinction between local and national state and class actors. Why? Could you elaborate about the conflicts in Mexico City within the context of state and class actors?

Diane Davis: The book came out in 1994. It was actually a version of my dissertation that originally started as a much narrower project about the decision to build a subway in Mexico City. It focused on uses of space and the city itself, as well as the role of the class struggle in molding urban land use patterns, including sprawl. But to get at this I needed an empirical hook - why Mexico City built a downtown subway in the early 60s. I focused on the subway because transportation is the key to understanding urban growth and spatial patterns, and I was interested in Mexico City because at that time it was one of the largest and most rapidly growing cities in the world…[…]

[...] Download Full version