Mapping the Megalopolis

Reviews / Votes

Mapping the Megalopolis is a most valuable contribution to the ever-challenging task of reading Mexico City, its spaces, and its cultures. The collective reflection on order and disorder provides new directions to think and theorize urban space in the grand Megalopolis of Latin America, in ways that help us think about the city as a problem in the global era. -- Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis This exceptionally timely and coherent collection of essays maps out one of the most unmappable cities of the world. The reader comes away not only with a deeper appreciation of Mexico City as a place where elite visions of progress are repeatedly undermined by quotidian disorder, but of the "deliriousness" of the modern megalopolis itself-the twenty-first century city teetering precariously on a ledge between modernity and a dystopian future. -- Eric Zolov, Stony Brook University This delightful compilation will give students, scholars, and travelers a good sense of present-day Mexico City, and its historic roots, from many disciplinary angles. It offers readers a fair consideration of the challenges which chilangos face; but more importantly it reveals the artistry, persistence, and resilience with which they confront life in the big city. -- Anne Rubenstein, York University