In the vibrant heart of Mexico City, the great-grandson of the neighbor from apartment 3 plays amidst gas canisters, sunbathing cats, and open doors that echo with the faint sound of a tube television. Not far from the playful chaos, a Virgin of Guadalupe statue stands guard beside a nativity scene, patiently awaiting Christmas carols. With a stoic gaze, María Guadalupe Gutiérrez, known as Doña Lupita, observes the scene. At 75, she embodies the old Mexico, a way of life she has fiercely defended for the past decade.
Doña Lupita’s Fight: Preserving a Legacy
Her story mirrors that of the remaining inhabitants of Mexico’s capital. She arrived as a child from rural Puebla, captivated by the cinemas, theaters, and above all, her vecindad – a beautiful 1885 building with volcanic stone finishes. Fifty years passed peacefully, between her baby clothes shop and her apartment. But this tranquility was shattered when she noticed “the stain” approaching.
When she speaks of “the stain,” Doña Lupita refers to a recurring tale across the city, particularly poignant in the historic center: the eviction of tenants. The vacated spaces transform into Chinese product warehouses, shopping malls, coffee shops, or “authentically Mexican” Airbnb experiences. “What they are doing is destroying our history. This is who we are. To destroy them is to destroy our identity,” she laments from her living room.
The Indispensable Vecindades: A Historical Tapestry
The history of Mexico, and its capital in particular, is indecipherable without its vecindades. These clusters of attached homes, centered around a communal patio, often nestled within colonial or nineteenth-century buildings, have housed working-class families for centuries. They experienced a resurgence in the 1950s with a demographic boom fueled by migration from rural areas to Mexico City.
A decade ago, anxiety propelled Doña Lupita into action. Friends told her about participatory budgets, a 3% allocation of municipal public funds managed by residents for community projects. Initially, she managed to intervene in 12 vecindades; now, she has helped over 30. She points to each revived community as she walks the historic center’s alleyways, showcasing her efforts with paint, waterproofing, cement, or new roofs.
Everyone greets her, but her smile abruptly fades. “See that?” she asks, pointing to a facade on Calle Chile, a kilometer from the Palace of Fine Arts. “They evicted people there recently, and now it will be a plaza.” The displacement of residents, especially in communal neighborhoods like those Doña Lupita protects, is a hemorrhage that predates even the city’s latest wave of gentrification.
Economic Displacement: A Deeper Dive
Unlike other neighborhoods, the displacement here is heavily driven by the commercial sector, explains urban planning expert Víctor Delgadillo. The academic notes that the transformation of the old town into an economic and tourist zone reached a breaking point in the 1950s and 60s. “You can see that the historic center has been significantly depopulated over time. Studies show that in 1950 it had 400,000 inhabitants, and today it only has 155,000,” he laments.
Focusing on the vecindades, the problem is even greater. Although updated data is scarce, the most recent available figures reveal a stark decline: between 2016 and 2022, homes classified as “in vecindad” dropped from 242,845 to 152,576, a 37% decrease. This trend continued even after the federal government expropriated many homes following the devastating 1985 earthquake, only to sell them back to residents.
Angélica Juárez, 65, still keeps a “big stack” of payment stubs. While serving juice to customers approaching the urbanization’s entrance, crowned with a Santa Muerte altar, Juárez, who arrived from Toluca at 18, recounts how she “sends away” a new Asian businessman every week who tries to convince neighbors to sell their homes. “They’ve tried to come here to ask. But no. I kick them out. Imagine living in an apartment, all cooped up, just between four walls, and no one sees you. Here, we all see each other, we greet each other, we pass the salt…” Juárez continues. For her, what Doña Lupita achieves each year is worth far more than “all the money in the world.” Though not always successful, the guardian of the center hears more and more neighbors succumbing to the siren song: “They’ve been given a million pesos (55,800 dollars). And I tell them: ‘That money will go away. This won’t.'”
Historical Neglect and Bureaucratic Labyrinths
Delgadillo attributes this drama partly to the errors of federal and local governments, which have historically neglected a “double cultural heritage: the architectural and the way of life.” Rosalba Loyde, a professor at UNAM’s Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, warns that “it is very expensive to maintain heritage spaces… Land use for housing is among the least profitable in any city, but in contexts like this, it’s worse. All interests are geared towards pressuring land use in the center towards other sectors.”
With her hands resting on the railing of a deep blue 19th-century building’s second floor, Ana María Robles, 67, surveys the first-floor hallways where deflated party balloons still hang from a window frame and a couple of children chase a pitbull. “Mexico City is a museum, completely. The streets, everything. But this is different. We live in living history,” she concludes.
The slow demise of these vecindades is a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle between progress and preservation, economic development and cultural identity. As Doña Lupita and her community continue their fight, the future of these historic urbanizations hangs in the balance, a testament to the enduring spirit of those who refuse to let their heritage fade away.
Source: https://elpais.com/mexico/2026-03-27/la-lenta-muerte-de-las-vecindades-de-ciudad-de-mexico.html
