Arrival in the DF

My arrival yesterday in Mexico City, the distrito federale of the nation's capital, was pretty much as I expected.

Thanks to much extensive reading over the past winter of such young American authors as David Lida, Chuck Thompson, and Jim Johnston, I had a remarkably amount of knowledge about the place before commencing my first trip here.

As all three of these writers point out--you can google them to find their books--Mexico City has attained an unfairly bad rap in the "Western"--read, American--press.

Thompson's book is his amusing account of picking three of the scariest places in the world and his subsequent journey to find out what the big fuss is about.  Somewhat facetiously he chose the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Mexico City, and Disney World.

A highly entertaining travel writer who despises the formulaic travel writing found in most newspapers and magazines today, Thompson himself was inspired by Lida's excellent "non-guide" book about the Mexicican capital.  Much of the factual info I pass along here comes from them both.

The DF is a massively huge area, perhaps definitive of urban sprawl in the developing world in this, the second decade of the 21st century.  Like many such megacities in the world's poorer countries, it has a large and rising population which is nearly impossible to document with any accuracy.  However, most agree that there are at least 20 million people living here, and probably at least 1000 more arriving every day.

That amounts to 1/5 to 1/4 of Mexico's entire population.  The reason so many live and work here is the same as why so many Mexicans seek work in el Norte, the U.S.--for the economic opportunities which are lacking in the rest of the country.

Probably at least 40% of the economy in Mexico is "underground" and therefore untaxed, and there are signs of this everywhere since so much of the economic activity is of people trying to sell something on the street.

Despite widespread poverty, Mexico's economy is large and robust.  It remains one of the ten largest economies in the world today, but the big problem is widening income disparity, with income stratification even worse than in the U.S.

After my reading last winter I realized that I've been missing out on a possible gem of a location for my continuing travels in the developing world, and one that's amazingly only a 3 1/2 hour flight from Chicago!  Because the DF is quite a bit like a New York City for all of Latin America--the undisputed center for culture, music, and the arts "south of the border"--I felt I had to rectify this hole in my lifelong itinerary.

And after only 24 hours here, I can say:  so far so good. . .