Introduction: Welcome to El Monstruo -- The birth of a monstruo -- City of flowers & smoking hearts -- City of palaces & ghosts -- City of betrayed hopes -- City of order & progress -- City of the cannibal revolution -- City of artists & assassins -- City & country -- City of miracles & hype -- Uruchurtu's city -- City of dread & redemption -- City of denial & shame -- City in crisis -- City of neoliberal nightmares -- Left city.
Summary
The author worries that his beloved Mexico City's days as the most gargantuan, chaotic, crime-ridden, toxically contaminated urban stain in the western world are doomed, and the monster he has grown to know and love through a quarter century of reporting on its foibles and tragedies and blight will be globalized into one more McCity. This book is a defense of place and the history of that place. It tells the gritty, vibrant histories of this city of 23 million.