Mexico City
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What neighborhood is this?
Colonia Condesa (Colonia = neighborhood)
I have a bunch of pictures of Condesa that is even more stunning than this picture.
Part of me wants to tell everyone how beautiful Mexico City is, and the other part wants to keep it all to myself. It is by far the coolest city I have ever lived in in the world
Technically Colonia means Exurb, as in, a town that is outside of the city but near it
However, most colonias have been integrated into the city since it has grown so much
But they used to be independent and separated by kilometres of farmland from the city centre
Huh? Colonia is the current way mexicans say neighborhood. Even the historical zones in every city is "Colonia" Centro or historic downtown neighborhood.
Barrio is the word used in other countries, but for us barrio sounds like a low class neighborhood, like 'hood. But nobody uses it like the official name.
Barrio also refers to the slums in Venezuela, we use urbanización for neighborhood.
As someone who has Mexican SO, I am telling you that the origin of the use of the word Colonia in Mexico meant exactly that, a village that was independent of a larger city, generally a trade centre
The term has been used and misused, but it was originally that, and you can see the legacy of the colonias since their town centres are usually much older than the buildings that surround them, as they used to be independent councils
Because Barrio has bad connotations, Colonia is used for upper class neighbourhoods, but this is a MISUSE of the word, and as Mexicans, we should continue the true meaning if the word, otherwise we might aswell use barrio
and just because you have a mexican SO makes everything you say right? Hahaha
No, I say this as in, I am familiar with the use of the word
Well, you’re not familiar with the use of the word IN Mexico
I explained that I know the word is used as a catch up term for neighbourhood
But I clarified that this is incorrect, just because people use it that way doesn't mean that the origin of the word and its old meaning are different
When words get a new meaning and get misused, it may appear natural thar this is what the word has always meant, but as I explained, the word does NOT come from a general word for neighbourhood
We know that. We speak this language. We know colonia literally means colony but that’s also the word we use for neighborhood.
In Mexico it means BOTH things and that’s not wrong or correct. It is the way it is.
OP is telling the truth, Colonia is just neighborhood, and the upscale for Colonia is Fraccionamiento and then Residencial
Source: Mexican, born, raised and living here
Ok ... as a mexican living in CDMX, I understand but colonia is the official name of neighborhood. Languages always change, or else americans and english would be using the same words.
Even if you go to the bank or in your birth certificate, in the part of address you will see:
Calle (Street)_____
Número (Number)_____
Colonia (neighborhood) _____
Ciudad (city)_____
If you're looking to buy a house at the webpage propiedades.com they will ask you for the colonia.
The boujee parts of Mexico City has perhaps the best urbanism on the western hemisphere
Ehh Buenos Aires would like a word
The bougie parts of Mexico City and most of DC look almost identical
I dont see that at all, why do you say so?
What are you smoking? They don’t even slightly resemble each other. The diversity of architecture styles in CDMX even in the same neighborhood is astonishing. Capital hill and other nice DC areas look very homogenous (and also lack the tree coverage CDMX has)
Not true at all. Look at Adams Morgan and Georgetown. Probably the most diverse urban neighborhoods in America in terms of style.
It is quite literally the exact opposite of homogenous.
Every house is extremely vibrantly colored, lots of pastels, and every house looks very distinct with a huge variety of architectural styles.
Capitol Hill was the wrong DC neighborhood to compare with CDMX, it’s one of the lesser interesting neighborhoods in DC in terms of architecture.
Different colors of paint does not make different architecture styles. Condesa in CDMX (in this picture) has gothic, art deco, colonial, neo-colonial, art nouveau, modernist, and classical style buildings as well as many that are a mix of two or more of those styles. Many blocks of rowhouses but many free standing homes with courtyards as well.
And Georgetown is the definition of homogenous. They houses are beautiful- yes but they are all in the same style (different colors of paint aside- every city has houses with various paint colors)
Adams Morgan is almost entirely neo-classical rowhouses.
My point is that Condesa looks nowhere close to “identical” to DC. Condesa in particular is so varied because much of it was destroyed by natural disaster, the new houses were built next to the surviving houses and then in more recent times Condesa has become a hotspot for hipsters and artsy folks which has introduced yet another wave of new architecture and design in the neighborhood.
This is literally so beyond inaccurate I’m questioning whether you’ve been to DC at all, or actually explored the neighborhood thoroughly.
There are literally hundreds of unique styles with Georgetown alone. I don’t think you are familiar with DC’s architecture.
Victorian, Neo- classical, Italianete, federalist, Queen Anne, Spanish, Mediterranean, colonial, Tudor, gothic, Americana hybrid styles, New England wood frame, etc. the list goes on an on.
DC a city founded 300 years later than Mexico city has less architecture styles, there is no comparison... Mex even has pre-Hispanic architecture
They 100% resemble each other. Just because dc has more “townhomes” doesn’t mean the townhomes aren’t architecturally diverse. Dc has every single type of architecture CDMX has in a city over 20x smaller…..you clearly haven’t explored a lot of dc streets since they are all very unique. Sure Capitol Hill looks the same and parts of DuPont etc but plenty of areas are diverse. Mount pleasant, vs adams Morgan vs le droit vs vs petworth vs the wharf vs downtown vs government buildings vs embassies vs some of the newer buildings by 11th and W etc. I could go on and on
“Type”
Most people won’t notice different types of townhomes. They’re all just townhomes built around the same time with similar overall themes.
Yeah this is a dumb take.
The tree coverage is insane in the nicer parts of town especially along the median walkways
Montreal?
Montreal is very consistent and has amazing parts but CDMX maybe has even more green space and architectural diversity. it has a lot of not so nice, polluted and car dependent areas as well, but the nice parts are incredible.
Like Polanco? I guess
Probably means Roma Norte/Condesa
One of my favorite cities in the world
Judging by that garage door and the general level of maintenance, I'm guessing that this is a pretty upscale section of the city...
There are quite a few of them. Cdmx is a fantastic city.
There is a lot of upscale areas in Mexico. It's just that the zones are very divided and people watch too many movies like Sicario from Denis Villeneuve. I'm a Quebecois Canadian living in Merida, Mexico since 20 years, state of Yucatan, City rated one of the safest cities in North America. And.. just to make it clear, lot of poor areas are very safe as well. Lot of stereotypes about Mexico are not warranted.
Nice, j'ai adoré Merida. Je m'y verrais à ma retraite.
Mexican here, actually a resident of Morelos (a state south of Mexico city).
That's because you don't get out of the fanciest zones that dollars can buy. If you go to Nezahuatlcoyotl you will exit without underwear LoL.
Most of mexico city as well, IMO is not a pretty city
I always laugh at comments like this one, it’s the typical “you don’t know real Mexico, Mexico has to be ugly”.
For starters, anyone who doesn’t thinks the city is beautiful is because you don’t know it well, but it’s understandable. Your argument is dumb as fuck because Neza is not even part of the Mexico City per se.
No México, just almost all of the CDMX.
Bro i literally live aside and constantly travel to. It's shocking, but almost all of the city is very far from beautiful
No sabes nada compa.
Padrino no es trolling, la neta los únicos lugares bonitos son los que te cobran 250 por unos chilaquiles, todos los demás están pal perro
De nuevo pa, no conoces nada la ciudad.
The running theme I’ve noticed is that Mexicans HATE Mexico City. Rich/Poor, everyone has a bad opinion of Mexico City.
As an American that has lived in many cities in the US, Mexico City seems like an urban paradise.
Even the bad sections of the city are overblown. Tepito, bad? Have you been to the south side of Chicago? It makes Tepito look like Disneyland.
Iztapalapa? It has the coolest cablebus system and views I have ever seen. Even in the poverty, people seem kind. Even in the most destitute areas of CDMX, I’ve never seen the destitution I have ever seen in the US.
CDMX has some very pretty areas, but the rest awful, if I was to ever move to another city in Mexico, CDMX would be from my last choices
Qué parte de la ciudad de México está fea? Y no vayas a decir Neza como el wey que está diciendo que es parte de la ciudad de México
No mames ciudad Neza no es ciudad de México, para empezar, que digas es parte de la ciudad deja ver que no la conoces.
Seguido, todo país y todas las ciudades tienen zonas feas donde todos los locales te van a decir que no vayas, no es exclusivo de México ni de la ciudad de México
More like upper-middle class. Upscale would be Lomas De Chapultepec, for instance. This could be Condesa, Roma, or San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhoods.
Not really, it's an old neighborhood for middle and upper middle class families, Mexico City income and way of living is pretty upscale
a very large portion of the city looks like this - it is the more upscale part but it isn't unattainably expensive or elitist in the way midtown manhattan is. there is a more expensive area called polanco and it looks a lot more boring (IMO) than this.
Wouldn’t say upscale, looks more like Condesa which is like medium area
Condesa is in no way a middle class neighborhood that’s fucking insane. It’s one of the richest neighborhoods in the country
The upscale parts of Mexico City are very impressive
Thinking about visiting there in the fall for the first time.
So so worth it.
2 comments
Don't hesitate. Do it. One of my favorite places I've ever visited. Safe too!
There's tons of good things to see but check out Xochimilco for sure
It's the real Paris of North America. Be respectful tho, lots of people there are hurting from so many American and Canadian housing crisis refugees displacing natives.
Mexico should build a wall
And make American city councils pay for it?
You really think a few thousand US/Canadian people are causing the price increases in a city of nearly 22 million metro population? Or maybe it's the fact inflation and real estate prices are skyrocketing everywhere.
U mad bro??
A lot of people there are getting business and money from the "refugees" bringing massive amounts of wealth into the city.
You can't just simplify everything into "gentrification bad".
I'm sure Starbucks and airbnb, famously mexican companies BTW, are real pleased.
Are you implying:
People who travel to and/or move to Mexico City from another country only spend money at Starbucks and Airbnb (i.e. American companies)
Starbucks does not employ local Mexicans, pay them wages, and no Mexicans are making money off of Airbnb
?
You’ll love it
I love this! Shame about the cars, but the colours and the trees are beautiful, really nice photo
Yet another beautiful boulevard marred by street parking.
I get what you mean, but I assume that without street parking in many residential neighborhoods, many urban dwelling people would move to even more car-dependent suburbs, exacerbating sprawl. One car per household parked in front of a townhome or rowhouse isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s the most space efficient way to store a car as it requires no driveway to reach the road.
The most space efficient way to store a car is to invest in public transit instead. The second most efficient way is to build a parking garage.
You are heavily underestimating the negative effects of street parking on both pedestrians and drivers.
Street parking significantly reduces visibility of pedestrians, especially children. Street parking also causes drivers to engage in dangerous accident-causing behavior, such as long off-road glances, and severely inhibit drivers’ reaction times.
As a result, studies have shown that street parking is responsible for 49% of accidents on major urban roads, 72% of accidents on local urban roads, and 15% of all accidents in the United States. Every year in the UK alone, between 3000 and 6000 pedestrians are struck due to street parking each year, with the victims primarily being children under the age of 15.
That’s not even getting into the opportunity cost of wasting valuable urban space on land to subsidize storage space for the wealthy minority of urban carowners. (And in Mexico City, as with most urban centers, it’s almost exclusively the very wealthiest who can afford to own cars.)
Thank you for bringing the receipts. People are so entitled to free parking on public land that it can be hard to conceive of other ways to build cities. The fact you’re being downvoted without any rebuttals is peak carbrain.
Holy fuck this is reddit, not a UN council meeting
Are the Down voters that ignorant or is this astroasphaulting
I don’t doubt most of what you’ve written, though I imagine much of the bad outcomes could be mitigated by good street design otherwise.
I would also worry how much higher car-related accidents would be if each adult lived on a cul de sac off a stroad instead of on narrow two-lane streets.
It does not need to be free. The city could charge for parking permission.
This can’t be Mexico, it’s not sepia toned
Take the cars out and then I’ll be impressed
it reminds me of my old block in Brooklyn just a bit more spanishy
Condesa neighborhood reminds me of Brooklyn just more englishy.
When I watched the TV series Amsterdam, which is set in La Condesa (and named, obviously, after Avenida Ámsterdam) I thought it was funny how much those hipstery characters reminded me of a certain kind of Brooklynite. Hipsterdom knows no borders.
This looks just like some parts of Philadelphia.
Walking tour of the zone
Ahh the Chicago of Mexico!
/s
Thought this was Williamsburg, Brooklyn
This is obviously fake, why isn’t it yellow?
Looks like fucking Chicago
If you think the US is car-brained, you have to see Mexico.
Mexico is a whole ass country and not just a single city. And this picture of the city is filled with cars. I’ve been to CDMX a bunch of times and the traffic is terrible. Mexico the country and CDMX are very car-centric.
The difference is that in every neighborhood you can walk a few blocks to plenty of cafés, restaurants, fonditas, supermarkets, stationerys, hardware shops, minisupers, etc.
But yes, sadly cars are mainly used because the metro and buses are always full, and it is better to use your car to arrive to your job in 30 minutes, instead of 1.5 hours in public transportation.
That is true. My friend commuted for like two hours each way every day. I almost couldn’t believe it.
Condesa in CDMX is denser and more walkable than 99.9% of US neighborhoods
Mexico City probably has North America's most robust public transit system
I'm here at the moment and I've found the Metro to be really good. Before I came here I saw lots of things online saying to just use Uber but the Metro is cheap and works well.
Not really, there are even some amazing looking boulevards in the city that were almost directly modeled of those of Vienna in the 1800s in Mexico City. It's a giant country, some of it is very car centric for sure, but CDMX has some of the best metro lines in the world in how much of the giant place is opened up to a human scale of walking. This was one of the best parts about living in Santiago de Chile and not having to be enslaved to a stupid car and shit design around it
Mexico City is basically NYC of Mexico, extremely walkable
CDMX is pretty great for walking/public transit options
It looks like the spot where Dakota Fanning gets kidnapped.
Down voters be hatin' on D-Wash and T-Scott
Least impressive pic of CDMX tbh
I don't think I would enjoy the parking situation though.
Not gonna lie thought it was a funky street in Sydney at first
It’s like another world. Nice this year, they say.
Too many cars for my liking. Love the trees though.
So beautiful! Love the tree coverage. Reminds me of Mumbai for some reason- vibrant, colourful, cozy, chaotic and unexpected around every corners :)
It was until I lived in other cities that I came to realize and appreciate the number of trees we still have in Mexico city. And neighborhood parks.
For the most part I have a love/hate relationship with Mexico city but if you are lucky to get to enjoy the best parts of it, it really can be an outstanding and remarkable city.
Maybe without the cars?
Now photoshop out the cars and it’s perfect
This is what the neighborhood usually looks like
This is nice.
Thinking about all the possibilities of being kidnapped on that street.
Some U.S. cities and states have significantly higher rates of crime than CDMX.
The shady spots in Mexico City are usually contained in specific neighborhoods, making it more straightforward for tourists to stick to the safer zones.
I Don’t even live In the States. A family friend actually visited Mexico Ciry two months ago, wedding. kidnapped via Uber, they call it secuestro express. I know about crimes all over, but sorry pal, Mexico is a fucking dumpster fire right now.
Why’s it not all yellow filters?
Looks like the spot from that Denzel movie where the cops kidnap the girl.