Abstract
This essay outlines the historic political battle between Mexico's longest serving mayor, Ernesto Uruchurtu, and the nation's president, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, over the construction of what would become the second largest subway system in the Western Hemisphere, The Mexico City Metro. The conflict, which eventually resulted in Uruchurtu's resignation, was characterized by latent political tensions between the PRI and Mexican middle class that would erupt in 1968 and lead to the ultimate decline of PRI hegemony. I thus argue that the new Metro project did not reflect Mexico's democratic modernization--as its supporters meant it to do--but rather the vestiges of the nation's autocratic, clientelist history.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Ulin, Maxwell E.P.
(2017)
"Ticket to the Past: A Political History of the Mexico City Metro, 1958-1969,"
Grand Valley Journal of History: Vol. 4:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gvjh/vol4/iss2/4
Included in
Infrastructure Commons, Latin American History Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Policy History, Theory, and Methods Commons, Political History Commons, Transportation Commons, Urban Studies Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons