It appears that Google Maps street view has moved to the first ‘developing’ country, Mexico. All the other countries heretofore were in the EU, Canada, the US, Australia, NZ, i.e. all places with HDI’s well above .900. Unless you looked hard discovered the most blighted of urban England or the American Northeast, you weren’t likely to discover something ‘totally different’ from middle class reality.
But Mexico is a different story, having an income stratification that makes New York City seem like Denmark. So the side streets of its major cities have the potential to expose us to a very different, but very interesting, urban landscape.
So far, it appears Google has added Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puerto Vallarta, D.F. (Mexico City and suburbs), and Puebla. Those cities alone accounts for much of Mexico’s upper and middle classes, so it makes sense.
Let’s go on a quick journey.
The first thing about Guadalajara I noticed was the shocking amount of graffiti. It reminded me of New York in the 1980’s. The trees are more shrubby and subtropical than I thought (jacaranda trees and palms); the terrain quite flat. It reminds me of what I saw in Colombia – a lot of 19th century buildings mixed with early modern mid-rises. It seems that the 1950’s-1970’s were good times for Latin America based on the prevalence of mid century skyscrapers.
If you pan around this map, you will see a traffic circle with a gigantic ugly supermarket taking up most of the real estate. But I love those directional signs!
This is the upper class and relatively new commercial district, Puerta de Hierro. Pan around all the way and you’ll see a shopping mall with a Chili’s!
The intersection of “Montreal” and “Bogota”, not too far from Puerto de Hierro:
An older part of town with a fair amount of graffiti:
A few political murals in a more run down part of town. PAN is one of the major political parties of Mexico. This resembles some of the political “billboards” I saw for local candidates in Barranquilla, Colombia – the same painting schemes, painted on similarly short walls.
More to come!
