Roma and Condesa, gentrification or decadence

The gentrification of traditional neighborhoods or settlements is a measure of a city's success in attracting population, investment, and prosperity. It is almost always based on urban heritage inherited from past eras, which is restored, valued, reintroduced, and repurposed in a new and dynamic real estate market. The restoration and maintenance of heritage buildings (colonial, neoclassical, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, neocolonial, or functionalist) is only viable for residents and businesses of a certain income level. It is impossible to restore and maintain heritage buildings with precarious tenants. This has been demonstrated time and again in Mexico City's Historic Center, and also in the Roma and Condesa neighborhoods (also in Juárez, Santa María la Ribera, and San Rafael neighborhoods). First, with the 1948 rent freeze, which led to the abandonment and deterioration of buildings by making their proper maintenance impossible. Second, with the emigration of upper-middle- and upper-class families to the new neighborhoods in the western part of the city since the 1960s. Third, with the 1985 earthquake, which caused severe damage to many buildings and created a depressing atmosphere of social and urban decay. With rents frozen at very low levels and small-time businesses, it was unviable for owners to invest in the restoration and maintenance of historic or heritage buildings.

This occurred in a context of regulatory and bureaucratic restrictions on housing densification and construction. Exceptions were Mario Pani's Juárez apartment complex on the site of the former National Stadium, and nondescript buildings constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, without property oversight by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INBA). Decrepit buildings, abandoned or litigation-ridden properties, architectural and heritage degradation, street vending, and the lumpenization of public space multiplied. The Roma and Condesa neighborhoods declined, leading to the depopulation of the central city at the end of the 20th century. The architectural, historical, or heritage value of properties must necessarily be correlated with their market value and the income or purchasing power of their inhabitants. To say otherwise is mere demagoguery. The Roma and Condesa neighborhoods were never working-class neighborhoods. They were conceived, planned, and developed for upper-middle-class and even aristocratic families. Colonia Roma was a jewel of Porfirian urban development, along with Santa María la Ribera, planned and executed by Miguel Angel de Quevedo (yes, before becoming the "Apostle of the Tree," Miguel Angel de Quevedo was an urban planner, engineer, and real estate developer, necessarily French). His signature is found in wide, rectangular streets, tree-lined sidewalks, plazas and avenues, water and drainage, electrification and streetlights, and streetcar lines. The Roma, Juárez, and Santa María la Ribera neighborhoods were flagships of Porfirian prosperity. The Condesa neighborhood began to be divided into rectangular subdivisions beginning in 1902 on land belonging to the Countess of Miravalle. During the 1920s, it was redesigned and planned by José Luis Cuevas Pietrasanta, using the former Hippodrome as a template and Parque México as the urban heart, with curved streets, tree-lined medians, and Art Deco buildings inspired by the French Haussmannian style. It is a historical falsehood to claim that the Roma and Condesa neighborhoods were once working-class neighborhoods, despite the decades of degradation and decay between 1950 and 2000.

The gentrification currently experienced in the Roma and Condesa neighborhoods is, in reality, a social and urban renaissance, grounded in the Porfirian legacy and catalyzed by new demographic trends, remote work, international tourism, culture, and young people's preference for urban centrality. This renaissance affects those who lived in the decline and now face the boom, which is coupled with rising rents, not only due to high demand but also due to outdated density and height restrictions that block supply. Many people are forced to leave the central city and live on the outskirts. It is absurd and suicidal to try to expel tourism, and delusional for the Mexico City government to adopt the woke, leftist, and backward discourse against gentrification and offer political and ideological cover (from Iztapalapa to the world) to xenophobic criminal groups from the ruling party, who have recently ravaged and vandalized the Roma and Condesa neighborhoods. (Vandalism is already endemic in Mexico City.) Some mandatory options to mitigate the social costs of gentrification include changing urban regulations to promote densification and a diversified housing supply in the central city; punitive property taxes on abandoned or underutilized properties; strict control of Airbnb; right of first refusal for tenants when purchasing apartments; eliminating street vendors; tightly controlling non-residential land uses, as well as operating hours and noise; pedestrianizing streets; paving and improving public spaces and street furniture; micro-mobility; and tax incentives (property tax) for the restoration of heritage buildings. Trying to combat gentrification by capping or controlling rents and privileging tenants' "rights" would be another tragic populist folly, and a return to decadence.