Mexico City

The other extremely poor county is Chimalhuacán.

It has a nice church



a colourful carnival



and doesn't look that bad from above the lake:



But it's damned poor...



chaotic



next to a big unhealthy garbage dump


...and still growing with the poorest newcomers:

While I understand the aversion to these type of housing units, it's a much better alternatives to some of dwellings I've seen in other places. I see what you mean by another floor, very ingenious.
My father's family (for several generations) used to be managers of a wool mill and the..what I believe was, the first or second tract housing village/development in the England, if not the world.
Apparently, we are not welcome back.. lol

One more question... Why is there so much flooding in Mexico City and area? Is it flash floods? We get a 'storm of the century' every couple of years that floods areas of my city? Or is it geography, areas prone to flooding, that houses probably shouldn't have been built on those particular spots.. (just so you know, the same can be said for many places in this country too.)

Yours is a very important question.

The original Aztec city was built from an island in the lake, and grew though chinampas (here, the wiki explanation of the chinampa method). It had several channels.
The conquistadors described it as magnificent, and similar to Venice.

If the city is over a lake, floods tend to be common.
They were so bad in the XVII Century that the city population was one fourth of what it used to be a century before.

In the late XIX Century there were still canals near downtown:



President Porfirio Díaz ordered the lake to be dried,to prevent more flooding.
During his times, ladies paid poor indians to carry them across the often flooded streets.

Since important parts of the city were built over muddy grounds, the city sinks... and water flows to the lower areas.

As for rain, my son, who lives in the UK, noticed that statistically it rains in Mexico City as much as in Cambridge. Only in England it rains every month, in Mexico City is hardly rains between late November and early March, but Tláloc certainly makes up for it in our very very showery summer.

And water takes it course, wants to go to its original bed.

Important investments have been made to improve the sewage system -it has three levels now, in the photo, the Deep Sewage:

Yearly flooding occurs in two places.
One is a neighborhood in Iztapalapa, that was constructed in a wrong place.
The other is Valle de Chalco-Solidaridad, because of the river La Compañía -which carries debris from the city.

I totally agree with you on that.

Me too.

Also I'm interested in the seemingly inexorable drainage problems in some areas, with no bright ideas to offer.

Just for kicks.

The map of Mexico City's subway system:

You'll notice there are no subway lines in the north.

For them, the suburban train line:

The Mexico City subway system is relatively new. Construction was delayed for decades due to the muddy nature of the city's underground.

The first line was inaugurated in 1969.



Rush hour, moving eastwards:

Every station has a logo, according to history or toponymy:

And this is the suburban train:

I rode it and liked it, early seventies.. Not far, but I remember being impressed.

In order to go to Xochimilco, you need to get the "Light train".

Then there is the Metrobús system (Lentobús or Slowbus, we call it):

RTP buses don't have an exclusive lane:

Most common are the "peseros", who work private small bus lines and routes.
Peseros are -so far- the only ones to get into hilly zones.



The joke says that Santa Claus gives toys to good kids, coal to ill-behaved kids and a pesero to real son-of-bitches.

We still have our trolleys:



But trams are a thing of the past:

But vw's still live, don't they?