Cityscapes: Barrios CDMX

This edition of Cityscapes presents a selection of photographs from several barrios around Mexico City, all outside the Centro Historico. The photographs were shot between December 2016 and January 2017. Click the image above to view.

The 'Distrito Fedral' is the official name of this massive urban agglomeration. Although it was recently rebranded as 'CDMX' (Ciudad de México), capitalinos continue to refer to it as the 'DF'. The city is divided into 16 delegacións, or boroughs, each with its own mayor and incorporating hundreds of small colonias, barrios, and unidads (housing developments).

Founded as 'Tenoctitlán' in 1325, the Aztecs built the city over a series of lakes and marshes, the largest of which were called Texcoco and Xochimilco. Conquered by the Spanish in 1521, the city served as the headquarters for Spanish imperial ambitions until the War of Independence in 1821. After the Revolution that began in 1910, democratic reforms and increased mobility led to a rapid increase in migration to the capital.

Over the last half century, the city has exploded across the landscape to encompass the entire Méxic valley, hemmed in by mountains and the great Popocatépelt volcano. Today, with 20 million people spreading out over hundreds of square miles, it is one of the largest cities on earth. But the massive scale of Mexico City obscures the tremendous variety of neighborhood forms, compositions, and experiences. This edition of Cityscapes is an effort to capture even a fragment of this variety.