“I Had to Destroy the City to Rebuild It”: Political Violence and Road Building in Carlos Hank’s Mexico City, 1976–82

Near the end of his life, Carlos Hank, the former head of government of Mexico City, gave an interview where he boasted about the physical transformations he had wrought on the Mexican capital. Under his administration, he oversaw the creation of the Ejes Viales road system, which radically changed urban mobility for historic core of Mexico City. At the time, Hank –who characterized himself as an erudite problem-solver— heralded the plan for an expanded road system as necessary to address the crisis of traffic in that part of the capital. He argued that bus routes were too short, causing more traffic, which extended travel times and contributed to air pollution. In contrast, the Ejes Viales would have longer lines that extended across city blocks with fewer stops and use boarding platforms to improve travel experience for riders. To make way for the Ejes Viales, Hank authorized the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses and thousands of trees. The government’s plan received significant popular pushback, especially in the form of lawsuits that demanded renumeration. Ultimately, Hank prevailed in most cases. I argue that this history was part of a larger current of urban planning in Mexico that saw the government favoring elite, top-down approaches to infrastructure development. In part, this was due to the head of government’s political insulation—he was appointed by the president—but it also captured a political era that drew parallels with other motor vehicle-centric urban visions, like Robert Moses’s New York. Moreover, Hank’s ideas for Mexico City remain relevant today, for even as the capital’s political leadership has shifted to the left and approach to infrastructure planning has changed, the temptation to build big to “solve problems” remains pervasive.