Infrastructure

Mexico has a high potential for water and renewable energy development. However, only a small percentage of this nascent capacity has been used. Expanding renewables and innovation in water provision is critical for serving communities isolated from traditional infrastructure. Mexico City faces many challenges in mobility and transportation brought on by road privatization and over-crowding. Certain municipalities remain continuously underserved by public transportation efforts, limiting mobility and isolating communities. In this section we will analyze these issues, discuss their root causes, and discuss how design can confront them.

Mexico City is one of the world’s largest cities with over 21 million people. When the Spanish colonized in Mexico in the 1500’s, they dried out the lakebed to create a bigger city. Mexico City is located more than 6,500 feet above sea level which causes a heavy wet season throughout the summer and oftentimes causing flash floods. But, what is interesting is that even though this city seems to be over flourished with water, they are in fact facing a huge water shortage because of the lack of proper infrastructure. 2/3rds of Mexico City’s water supply comes from aquifers while the other 1/3^rd is imported from surface water 5 to 80 miles away in other cities, but eventually it is distributed to residents through a vast but quickly aging network of pipes that do not easily reach informal settlements. So, what happens when the aquifers start to dry up? There is a risk of lowering the humidity which can cause temperatures to rise and puts already struggling agriculture at risk. With higher temperatures, the water starts to disappear and makes an already thirsty city parched. This also causes the city to sink which causes an already fragile piping system to fail. The Emisor Central, the main piping system in Mexico City, is already corroded and overworked and is constantly being repaired. So, how do people get water other than the regular piping system that cannot keep up with the demand? Tandeo is a system in which they have “a turn” at water delivery through the city’s network, at specified times. For example, they may only have access to water for certain hours during the day and sometimes only once or twice a week. Pipas are government provided water trucks that deliver water to residents. These trucks, however, are very unreliable, not coming for weeks at a time without notice. For this reason, many families in these regions are living off of 20 L of water per day per person. To put that in perspective, the average person in the US takes an 8-minute shower each day, which consumes about 65 L of water! You can imagine the strain that it puts on individuals to divide their 20 L ration for drinking, doing laundry, washing hands, dishwashing, and sanitation purposes.

The Mexican electrical sector is federally owned and operated by Comision Federal De Electricidad (CFE), the 6th largest power company in the world and is responsible for 70% or all electricity systems produced in Mexico. The general electricity system breaks down from the generation, transmission, distribution and to consumers. 80% of the power supply comes from fossil fuels (80%), other sources are hydroelectric (10%), nuclear (4%), wind (3%) and other renewables (3%). The current power system conditions in Mexico City were mostly produced in the 1990s. Similar to other world regions, Mexico experienced improvements in the energy sector in power, gas and oil production during the 1990s. However, about 1.8 million people, 1.5% of the population in Mexico have no access to electricity, including three communities in the southern Tialpan, Mexico City. Many social businesses are looking at the possibility of providing access to electricity to those communities through renewable energy systems.

Mexico City consists of various types of road networks that affect mobility by automobile. Common forms of local road networks include: geometric plan, grid blocks, organic form, and “informal” (bottom-up) development. In many cases, local road networks are indicative of an area’s socioeconomic status. Large-scale road networks connect municipalities via axis roads, freeways, and toll road systems. Many of these networks are insufficient or remain incomplete throughout Mexico City.