México D.F. en los espejos de la modernidadLos rumbos de Tepito (1929-1960)

Abstract

The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is the study of the transformation of Mexico D.F into a modern metropolis during the period 1929-1960. Such study is based in a specific area within the city, the stigmatised suburb of Tepito, one of the first Northeast suburbs of the city. This area was situated in the so called slums and, due to its strategic location in the urban geography of the Mexican capital and its well-known reputation in the citýs imaginary as a marginal and dangerous place, it is deemed as a place worthy of study within the social and cultural urban history, so that, in this way, we can understand with a micro approach how the humblest sectors managed to reach modernity and, at the same time, to move away from certain common clichés and stereotypes about the slums and its inhabitants. The chronology of the dissertation corresponds with the project of a new capital city that began at the end of the 1920́s with the birth of the Department of the Federal District. Throughout these three decades, the city underwent a modernisation process that transformed its urban and economic infrastructures, but which also caused some urban imbalance that generated negative costs for society, especially for the working classes. However, the base of the metropolis project was a social and cultural project: modernity; which through new practice and new values focused on creating new citizens for a new city. Modernity included a whole series of social and cultural changes which modified the citizens’ way of living and feeling the city...