Ciudad Neza is one of the most populated municipalities in the country. But until the 1970s it was nothing more than a sort of ranch in the middle of a brown landscape that easily became waterlogged due to its proximity to Lake Texcoco.
Photos: ©Hector García
Photos: ©Hector García
By 1940 it was a huge piece of land that no one claimed because of its appearance. But the economic boom of 1950 made Mexico City and its surroundings (including the muddy area of Ciudad Neza) become the cornucopia of our country.
Photo credits: ©Centro de Información y Documentación de Nezahualcóyotl
Photo credits: ©Centro de Información y Documentación de Nezahualcóyotl
Not only people from the State of Mexico arrived there; entire families from Oaxaca, Michoacán and Jalisco also arrived with the sole intention of making a better life for themselves. Buying a house or an apartment in Mexico City (then the Federal District) was very expensive, but this apparently inhospitable and nameless land became a promised land.
Photos: ©Hector García
Photos: ©Hector García
The first colony to consolidate in the area was the Virgencitas colony. There were only 7 houses and they were made of cardboard. During the rainy season, the neighborhood seemed to rise from the mud. But between leaks and wet cardboard, the neighbors raised their houses again. It could be said that this resistance heralded what was to come.
Photos: ©Hector García
Photos: ©Hector García
The settlers suffered many shortages -- the most important, undoubtedly, was water. The only source of drinking water in the entire area was a faucet known as "Lavadero el mudazal". Every day, the women of the area carried their buckets there to collect drinking water, or to wash their clothes in the puddles that formed around the faucet.
Photos: ©Hector García
Photos: ©Hector García
Then there was the problem of electricity, which had to be stolen from the nearest poles. The neighbors, of course, were in charge of getting or making their own poles with sticks they found around. After gathering about 30 poles, they would start the wiring.
Photos: ©Hector García
Photos: ©Hector García
By 1959 there were already 33 neighborhoods in the area, but there was no sign of basic services such as pavement, drainage, drinking water and electricity. What for years had been a scrubland, little by little took the shape of a city, thanks entirely to its inhabitants, abandoned by the state. The people of Nezahualcoyotlenses raised money to pave their streets and install modest drainage systems.
Photo credits: ©Centro de Información y Documentación de Nezahualcóyotl
The official erection of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl was in 1963, a little more than 20 years after people began to migrate there. After its naming, work began to improve the appearance of the municipality. But it is still the same people who save Neza from all the shortages it still suffers, now, above all, of security. Perhaps that is the reason why many people are proud to live there: it is a space that they built with their own hands and that has more strength than almost any municipality in our city.
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