Canadian Students Visit Mexico City

Actualités, Nouvelles de l'Alliance étudiante

11 avril 2018

As part of a graduate class on cities of the ‘global south’, eight Canadian students were welcomed by the Institute of Geography of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for a week-long program of field visits and conferences by Mexican academics.

From the first formally planned socialist project in the colonia Michoacana with Claudia Zamorano (CIESAS), to Zumpango on the far North periphery of the metropolis where massive social housing units were constructed with Luis Salinas (IGG-UNAM), from the remodeled historic center with Alejandra Leal Martinez (CEIICH-UNAM) to the informal settlement of Jalalpa where a river has become open air sewage with Felipe de Alba (CESOP), from the cultural center Faro Oriente in Santa Martha Acatitla with Carlos Castro (UNAM) to the famously transgressive barrio de Tepito, eight Canadian students have had an intense week in Mexico City. This study trip was organized by Julie-Anne Boudreau from October 23-28, 2017. The objective was to give students the opportunity to experience what Mexico City is about, while learning from numerous Mexican scholars about urban research, and exchanging with Mexican students in Geography and Urbanism. We talked about popular urbanism, street vending, cycling, walking, risk management, the privatization of security, gentrification, public markets, urban migration, drug trafficking, hydric stress and the September 19, 2017 earthquake.