Other Political Science Commons^™

Ticket To The Past: A Political History Of The Mexico City Metro, 1958-1969, Maxwell E.P. Ulin

Grand Valley Journal of History

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 …