A Sad Story....

Hi everyone,

Just a little tidbit of useless information that I thought I would share. It's actually close to my heart because it's taking place in the city I call home. When my family was in Mexico City, we lived in an area called Zona Esmeralda, in a 'neighbrhood' called Club de Golf Chiluca. It is a very affluent area because it is where all the expatriates who are in Mexico City because their company sent them there live, because it is close to the city but high enough in the mounts to avoid most earthquakes and pollution. All of the neighborhoods were built around these wealthy golf clubs, for people who could afford to build a home there.
Contracting and construction in Mexico is very different than it is here in Canada or the US. It is mostly done independently, so all of the houses were original designs, no two alike. And because people were building into the mountainsides and using the stone and form of the mountains as part of their architecture I mean really really different, not just different materials, and each a different color. People in Mexico paint there houses bright pink if they feel like it. Very colorful :) Bellow is the view from my old neighborhood, just so you have an idea of what the area was like.


I say 'was' because some new developments have moved in across the hills from where I lived. A picture is worth a thousand words:

These are part of a low income housing plan. Yay. I'm all for affordable housing, considering how many people live in cardboard boxes in Mexico. Unfortunately, these houses actually aren't all that affordable, and still only cater to the middle class in price. They are also ripping into the hills you saw in the first picture, to level out the space for these structures. I probably don't even have to point out that they are painfully ugly.

So thats my sad story for the day. I weep bitterly. But hopefully this will get you thinking about ways to prevent things like this from happening, or ways to improve on the idea for the future.

~Brenda