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Informationen zum Autor Matthew Vitz is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. Klappentext In A City on a Lake Matthew Vitz tracks the environmental and political history of Mexico City and explains its transformation from a forested! water-rich environment into a smog-infested megacity plagued by environmental problems and social inequality. Vitz shows how Mexico City's unequal urbanization and environmental decline stemmed from numerous scientific and social disputes over water policy! housing! forestry! and sanitary engineering. From the prerevolutionary efforts to create a hygienic city supportive of capitalist growth! through revolutionary demands for a more democratic distribution of resources! to the mid-twentieth-century emergence of a technocratic bureaucracy that served the interests of urban elites! Mexico City's environmental history helps us better understand how urban power has been exercised! reproduced! and challenged throughout Latin America. Zusammenfassung Matthew Vitz outlines the environmental history and politics of Mexico City as it transformed its original forested! water-rich environment into a smog-infested megacity! showing how the scientific and political disputes over water policy! housing! forestry! and sanitary engineering led to the city's unequal urbanization and environmental decline. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I. The Making of a Metropolitan Environment 1. The Porfirian Metropolitan Environment 19 2. Revolution and the Metropolitan Environment 51 II. Spaces of a Metropolitan Environment 3. Water and Hygiene in the City 81 4. The City and Its Forests 109 5. Desiccation, Dust, and Engineered Waterscapes 136 6. The Political Ecology of Working-Class Settlements 164 7. Industrialization and Environmental Technocracy 193 Conclusion 218 Notes 235 Bibliography 291 Index 321
