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Reverberations: Mexico City's 1985 Earthquake and the Transformation of the Capital

Diane E. Davis: March 18, 2002; Running Time: 01:12:12

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

In this lecture, Diane Davis examines the impact of Mexico City's 1985 disastrous earthquake on the social, spatial, and political character of Mexico's capital city.

Davis discusses the earthquake's implications for social movement, the character of land use and property ownership, and the legitimacy of the capital city's political leaders and major construction contractors and argues that sometimes physical disasters such as earthquakes can produce profoundly unanticipated beneficial effects.

In addition to empowering urban citizens to organize on their own behalf to challenge a corrupt and highly bureaucratized local government, (and thereby accelerating the urban democratic transition) Mexico City's earthquake also helped expose the political biases of government authorities and weakened the strong hold of street vendors and the informal sector on the local economy and land use. As a result, Mexico City now is governed by a democratic and more socially responsible government committed to fostering citizen participation, building new low-income housing projects, and "rescuing" Mexico City's historic cultural heritage, all with the aim of recapturing the social and symbolic centrality of the downtown area, where the earthquake produced most damage.

Lecture Details

Location: Room 10-485

About the Speaker

Diane E. Davis

Associate Professor of Political Sociology in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT Associate Dean, MIT School of Architecture and Urban Planning

Diane Davis' research interests include the politics of urban policy and cities in comparative perspective. She is currently developing a taxonomy of cities in conflict that could serve as a basis for assessing the unique planning challenges and priorities faced by these cities.

Davis is the author of Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (1994; Spanish translation 1999). In addition to her extensive writings on the history and politics of urbanization and urban social movements in Mexico, Davis has published articles on local governance, leftist mayors, and democratic transition in Latin America in such journals as the Journal of Urban Affairs, Comparative Urban and Community Research, and Politics and Society. Davis is also editor of the research annual Political Power and Social Theory, and is a recent recipient of fellowships from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for her research on police impunity and deteriorating rule of law in Mexico City, Moscow, and Johannesburg.