Xochimilco not as an archetype. The history of an accelerated urban integration in Mexico City during the 20th century

Abstract

The urbanization of Xochimilco reached a turning point in the destruction of a geographic conditions of this area of the Valley of Mexico in the 20th century. The urban incorporation and conurbation were critical events whose causes are functional in origin, like an area with plenty of water for the metropolis. The territorial integration was a late process that induced a chaotic urbanization. The paper analyses this urban integration focusing on the characteristics of the urbanization in a rural and lacustrine space; the failure of political decision makers and their political rationality; the problems between the urban reality and the governmental programs, and some issues about environmental impact of the urbanization process and the desiccation of the lake and water spring and the drain of canals. Thus the conservation programs of this ecosystem could not be successful. Instead, Xochimilco could loose the ancestral rural and lacustrine conditions, in other words, its historical archetype.