Tackling the World's Largest City

It's time to set the scene a bit for our tour of modern Mexico City, which may be the world's largest city, with a population estimated at anywhere between 23 and 28 million people.

Yet to look at the buildings, you would think it's only about as dense as Los Angeles: aside from a couple of clusters of office buildings and hotels, most of the city doesn't rise much above three or four stories.

Instead it sprawls out, in all directions, subdivisions visible for many minutes before you take off or land:


From the ground, they seem to drape across every bit of flatland and hillside:


Up close, these are basic cinderblock houses, often unpainted and rarely with any obvious amenities:


But in a country where many rural people still live in thatched wooden shacks and ride donkeys, this must seem like a step up, not to mention a chance to be part of the urban economy.

Moving around the vast city is difficult, to say the least. Tourists are advised not to take taxis, for fear of getting robbed or murdered by the driver or his confederates. And in any case, you don't want to be on the roads, where the traffic has to be seen to be believed.

The central neighborhoods where most tourists go are walkable in size, though sidewalks have a habit of cracking or vanishing without warning, and you take your life in your hands whenever you try to cross the street. (True, there are "walk" and "don't walk" lights, but just because you got a "walk" light doesn't mean there isn't a green arrow somewhere directing traffic right into your crosswalk.) And getting from one neighborhood to another is probably more distance than you want to walk in any case.

Fortunately, Mexico City has one of the best public transportation systems I've ever seen in a third world city. The extensive subway system is modern, of 1960s vintage, and uses the same quiet rubber-tired technology as you see in Paris. At the best of times, it looks like this:



At the worst of times, you can't see the floors or most of the trains because of the crowds. (But hey, at 3 pesos or 21 U.S. cents per ride, at least it's a bargain.)

More recently, they've begun putting in busways, dedicated high-speed bus lanes that New York is also experimenting with. Judging from our experience in Mexico City, this has promise. The center lanes of major streets are cordoned off from other traffic and devoted exclusively to buses, which stop at subway-like stations where riders pay their fare before boarding:



This both speeds up boarding and keeps the bus out of traffic, although it still has to wait at red lights for cross streets to clear. As with the subways, though, this system gets insanely crowded at times.

One quirk of the city's public transportation, in fact, stems directly from that crowding: women- and children-only sections. Apparently, women complained of being pushed and molested in the crowds, so now they get their own entrances to the buses and subways:



It may be a sensible solution to a local problem, but as with the sex- and age-specific want ads, it's a reminder that you're definitely not in the United States of America anymore.