A Battle For Public Spaces

"This was the greatest city of the New World, three centuries old when New York was a muddy clutch of huts... Everyone in Mexico City — all 20 million people — wants the center cleansed, says the mayor. All, that is, except the ambulantes, or street vendors, who stand to be swept away.... Cecilia Martínez, a Mexico City architect and a director of the Mega-Cities Project, an organization that aims to solve intractable urban problems, says the city should not evict the vendors without creating a social architecture for them — stores, housing and schools. If the vendors disappear, she says, a piece of history vanishes too."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan